Eoghan O'Sullivan gives us some of his cultural highlights of the year

Magic moment: It’s an eerie feeling standing alone at midnight on a Saturday, surrounded by some 20,000 people.

Then the lights go out and the unnerving strands of ‘Silence’ swirl around. And that eerie feeling turns into awe. Portishead played their first Irish show in 17 years at Electric Picnic, unleashing a magical 70-minute set.

The enigmatic Beth Gibbons commanded the stage, while the likes of ‘The Rip’ and ‘Machine Gun’ reminded anybody that needed it just what an essential band Portishead are. Everything else at Electric Picnic that weekend in early September subsequently felt like background noise.