20. Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois (2005)

Sufjan’s Prairie State

I wish he did all fifty

(Yes, I fell for it)

19. Jeffrey Lewis -- It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through (2003)

Anti-folk hero

Serves comic stripped down delight

Raw, honest and fun

18. PJ Harvey -- Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)

Poptastic Polly

Her most commercial album

That never sells out

17. Pulp -- We Love Life (2001)

Leafy perfection

From kitchen sink troubadours

Sad, Sheffield swansong

16. TV on the Radio -- Dear Science (2008)

Arse-shaking anger

As Sitek and crew unleash

Brooklyn funky stuff

15. Bruce Springsteen -- Working on a Dream (2009)

My favourite Boss

Is reconciled with E Street

Glory Days again!

14. Midlake -- The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)

Lush, pastoral grooves

Et in arcadia they go

I think I’ll head home!

13. The Strokes -- Is This It (2001)

New York storybook

A soundtrack of the decade

This, it seems, is it

12. Johnny Cash -- American III: Solitary Man (2000)

Departed legend

Au revoir, L’homme en noir

No one sounds like you

11. Brian Wilson -- Smile (2004)

Infamous Beached Boy

Went back to sea triumphant

And served up Surf’s Up

10. Grinderman -- Grinderman (2007)

Black Crow Kingdom reigns

As Bad Seeds bear twisted fruit

(See what I did there?)

9. The White Stripes -- White Blood Cells (2001)

Third from Jack and Meg

With incandescent gee-tars

And Awesome Welles riff

7. Lift to Experience -- The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (2001)

A Lone Star Statement

They burnt fast but -- by God! -- burnt bright

“Don’t mess with Texas”

8. Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Tupelo’s Tweedy

Overcame Warner Bother

To create this gem

6. The National -- Alligator (2005)

Late night, low-rent wit

Don’t compare to Tindersticks

They’re better than that

5. Arcade Fire -- Funeral (2005)

Mournful joie de vivre

Joyous momento mori

(Inadequate praise)

4. Tom Waits -- Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (2006)

Gravel voiced Bardfly

Serves up three courses of treats

We hunger for more!

3. Warren Zevon -- Life’ll Kill Ya (2000)

Sardonic singer

Enjoyed every sandwich

Then left us a feast

2. Lambchop -- Nixon (2000)

Funky slide guitars

Where country and Curtis meet

Mayfield, not Stigers!

1. The Flaming Lips -- Yoshima Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

Fearless freaks, rejoice!

Perfect bubblepop classic

Don’t you realize??

Why Top 5? Why not a Top 10? As a lapsed Discordian I was going to knock out a rather elaborate, mind-bending explanation based on the ‘Law of Fives’ (which, according to Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy, claims that everything in the universe can be connected to the number five if you try hard enough), but that looked too much like hard work.

Instead, I’ll just tell you the truth: I opted for a Top 5 because I didn’t go to very many gigs in 2008.

Five of ‘em, though, were fucking awesome…

5. Bearsuit, Latitude Festival 2008 – Pete Ashton introduced them to me in 2007 when I saw them play at Birmingham’s Sunflower Lounge, and their Latitude set was great fun. They’re tremendously silly, ridiculously catchy and highly recommended. Jupiter Force, indeed.

4. Foo Fighters, Wembley Stadium, 7th June 2008 – I mentioned it in passing here, here and here but never got around to writing a proper review. Oh, well. I’ve never been what you might call a Foo Fighters fan; I have, however, always been an unrepentant Led Zeppelin fan. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones surprise guest appearance on stage – and their storming rendition with Grohl & Co of Zep classics Rock and Roll and Ramble On – made this a gig to remember.

The Foo Fighters were quite superb, too.

3. Buzzcocks, Latitude Festival 2008 Sweaty, sticky, stomping fun in a marquee at 2am isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. It’s my idea of a good time and I wrote about it here.

2. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Birmingham Carling Academy, 5th May 2008;
Grinderman, Latitude Festival 2008 I’m cheating a bit, here – I suppose this should be two separate entries – but this is my list so my rules rule. I wrote about the former here and the latter there.

1. Tom Waits, Le Grand Rex Paris, 24th July 2008 – No shit, Sherlock. A bit of a foregone conclusion, this. A Tom Waits gig will always, by definition, be the the gig of the year. That’s just the way it is.

I attempted a reconstruction of the gig here.

Top 10 Films of 2008 to follow.

So here I am, nearly three weeks after we finally packed up our tents, and I’m still writing about the Latitude Festival. Haven’t quite grasped the concept of live blogging, have I?

Anyhow, we’ve now reached Day 4 or – as it was more commonly known back in those days – Sunday, 20th July 2008. It was the last day of the festival and, without hesitation, my undisputed highlight was seeing Grinderman perform at the Obelisk Arena. Grinderman, in case you don’t already know, is a band Nick Cave formed with erstwhile Bad Seeds Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey and Jim Sclavunos. They released an eponymous album last year and their raw and raucous guitar-based sound been compared in some quarters with Cave’s post-punk band The Birthday Party. Not in these quarters, mind: I think they sound more like the early-Bad Seeds. Other people in other quarters think that the early-Bad Seeds sound a lot like the late-Birthday Party, while other factions maintain that the early-Birthday Party sound a lot like the late-Boys Next Door. That’s just being awkward, though.

Whatever the case, I make no secret of my musical allegiances: I’m a huge Nick Cave fan and have been for many a year. I saw him play with his long-time cohorts The Bad Seeds as recently as May and wrote about it here. Elsewhere, I’ve said that he “kicks arse so hard it farts out of its nose.” Overall, then, I’m of the opinion that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are one of the greatest live rock-and-roll bands in the world. After seeing the Grinderman gig at Latitude, though, I feel as though they’re facing some stiff competition from themselves.

With menacing swagger and no shortage of humour, Cave captivated the crowd. He’s very good at crowd captivation. The band opened with Depth Charge Ethel and most of the set came from the Grinderman album, with the addition of a new song called Dream (“Like when you’re fucking asleep,” clarified Cave, before edging himself into a verbal cul-de-sac by misquoting Shakespeare: “To dream, perchance to… to… to… ah, fuck it.”).

Here they are. Watch them rock.

Other highlights of the day included:

14.00(-ish) Wordtheatre: The Affairs of Others. I caught this by chance and was captivated. David Soul – the artist formerly known as Hutch, Ben Mears and Jerry Springer – read the Tobias Wolff short story ‘Bullet in the Brain.’ Black as anthracite humour, powerfully delivered.

14.45 Frankie Boyle. Glaswegian panel show regular surprised me by being a lot funnier than I expected.

15.50 Noah & The Whale. They of the criminally catchy summer hit 5 Years Time. Clare wanted to see them; I’m glad I went.

16.30 Otis Lee Crenshaw. Wah-hey! More Rich Hall!

17.30 Stewart Lee. Sublime. A routine that consisted of riffs and meditations on a 1970s comedy album called ‘I’m a Comedian…. Seriously’ by Franklyn Ajaye (yes, I had to look him up, too) became a ruthless deconstruction of comedy technique. It shouldn’t have been anywhere near as pant-wettingly funny as it was. But it was.

18.35 Breeders. I saw them in April but, mercifully, this time around was spared the insane ramblings of a speed garage freak from Northampton. They were great, of course, but probably would have been better in the more intimate Uncut tent.

20.00 Grinderman. See above.

21.15(-ish) Blondie. More guilty pleasures. We caught them from a distance, but didn’t have a choice (and, yes, I meant to say ‘them’: as Clare pointed out at the time, Blondie is a band. People seem to forget that).

21.45 Tindersticks. I’ve never really listened to the Tindersticks, but they’ve often been mentioned in the same breath as bands I really like. Thought I’d give them a try; wish I didn’t.