Gorillaz in the House - Gorillaz residency (25%) To launch the Manchester International Festival, Damon’s cartoon creations brought themselves and a host of master musicians, not least being our very own Shaun Ryder, to the Opera House for a week. Every night sold out, every night was a weirdly marvellous thriller and no-one left unsatisfied. The others... 24 hour party city - Music 24 (22%) A few months before the licensing laws caught up, Manchester plunged head first into a day and night of gigs that saw The Longcut and I Am Kloot playing the Roadhouse at 7am and Ian Brown going on stage at the Academy around midnight! The sensible picked and chose their way through the day, the brilliant lunatics went to everything. Freaky voting - Bez wins Celebrity Big Brother (20%) Celebrity Big Brother made a Manc legend into a superstar. Bez took the £50,000 Big Brother prize, gained 54% of the final viewer vote, gave the money to the tsunami relief appeal, and summed it all up by saying that “at the end of the day I realise I was there for a reason, for my family and to get me out of this trouble and I couldn't ever bear the risk of losing the lot. I had had these mad plans what I was going to do but at the end of the day I couldn't do it because this money I've got now means so much to me." You’ve just got to love him. Back for good? - Take That reform (18%) It started as a rumour, it became a documentary, and all of a sudden, queues were forming outside arenas to get tickets for the 2006 concerts. Sold out in minutes despite Robbie refusing to get involved, Take That found that they might have been gone but they were never forgotten. That said, Gary, Mark, Howard and Jason admitted it would be a challenge to return to the level of fitness demanded by a tour. When asked about it, Mark Owen said "we sat and watched some of our old videos and I was exhausted just looking at them,", while Howard Donald, who said his knees had "gone" added that he’d started running “to try to get myself fit and cut down on the fags. This is going to be a big challenge." Rocking Urbis - Mick Rock exhibition (15%) Proving that there’s more to music than the simple sounds, legendary photographer Mick Rock took centre-stage for a retrospective of his iconic images at Urbis, allowing us all the chance to drool over Debbie, idolise Iggy and dream about David all over again. He even agreed to get involved with unsigned stars The Permissive Society after meeting them at his launch party. | 
