Wonder.land (Palace Theatre, Manchester)

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel, the portal was all too literal. There was a rabbit, on his way to Wonderland, and he had a hole. Beautiful in its simplicity. But what would a modern-day rabbit hole equivalent be? How to update the portal to Wonderland for 2015?

And therein lies the genius of Wonder.land, the 21st century remix of a perennial family favourite by Moira Buffini and Damon Albarn. In 2015, the obvious portal to a world of wonder, colour, craziness and danger is the mobile phone in everybody's pocket. Through the screen on our mobile devices, we can be transported anywhere and everywhere, through the magic of Japanese technology and the world wide web. There are no limits to where you can go and what you can see on a mobile phone, which is why Wonder.land runs with this so brilliantly.

Blur (Venue Cymru, Llandudno)

It was a bit of a surprise earlier this year when Blur announced the release of their first new album as a foursome in 16 years. And it was even more of a surprise last month when they announced they would be playing a handful of warm-up gigs for the summer, and one of them would be in my home town of Llandudno!

I mean, that just doesn't happen... My favourite band ever, back together, releasing new material and playing live on my doorstep? It seems fantasy can become reality.

Much has been made of the fact Blur's date at Llandudno's Venue Cymru was their first gig in Wales for 18 years (since December 1997, to be precise). But that was in Cardiff; this was their first gig in North Wales ever. But, as frontman Damon Albarn told the crowd, the oversight was never intentional.