I went to about 100 shows this year. A lot of them were fantastic, but here are 20-some that were especially memorable (in no particular order, after the first one…and I’m probably forgetting plenty that were just as great):

- Arcade Fire at Madison Square Garden, Aug. 4. Not only was this the best show I went to this year, but it’s the best I have ever been to in my life. I managed to buy a general-admission floor ticket for this, and thanks to getting there a couple hours early, I was front and center, one or two people away from the barricade. Owen Pallett was on double duty, opening the show and then playing violin with Arcade Fire; Spoon was great; and Arcade Fire was exhilarating. This night was nonstop on my mind for weeks after the show, and I had the treat of seeing them again at Lollapalooza just a few days later — that was a different experience, but no less exciting. Hearing the crowd still singing the tune of “Wake Up” while leaving the park was perfect.

- LCD Soundsystem at Music Hall of Williamsburg (April 8), Webster Hall (April 12), and Terminal 5 (May 19). It was by some Ticketmaster miracle that I was able to go to those first two shows, but they were SO much fun — so much dancing, sweating, screaming the words. I think the Willyburg show was the best, Webster was the most fun, and T5 I went to because I had bought tickets before the smaller shows were announced, and my best friend was in town, so it was still a blast and I remember almost tearing up while screaming the words to “All My Friends” in the company of three of my best ones.

- Owen Pallett at Webster Hall, April 23. Writeup and some great photos.

- Screaming Females at various venues. One of the best concert moments this year was when Screaming Females’ Marissa Paternoster joined Ted Leo on stage at Siren Fest to sing “Woke Up In Chelsea.” The Screamales’ newest album, Castle Talk, while fantastic, isn’t my favorite record of theirs (that’d be Power Move), but they quickly became one of my favorite live bands.

- Janelle Monáe at Terminal 5. Monáe blows my mind. Despite the horrible crowd at this show, she was unfreakingbelievable.

- Sufjan Stevens at the Beacon Theater, Nov. 14. Click for lots of words about that show.

- Samantha Crain at the Bell House and in the eMusic kitchen, June 15 and 16; Frontier Ruckus at Southpaw and in the eMusic kitchen, June 17. Can’t say enough about either of these artists. Click that link for a little on both.

- Lost in the Trees at various venues. I saw this band three times this year, every time was pretty magical. I also interviewed frontman Ari Picker. Writeups and photos from their shows at Bowery Ballroom and The Bell House.

- Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes at Webster Hall and Lollapalooza.

- Anaïs Mitchell at Joe’s Pub, April 23. I’ve been following Anaïs Mitchell for a few years now and she’s so lovely live. She and her band played her entire folk opera, Hadestown, from start to finish.

- The Low Anthem at Bowery Ballroom, April 14. Hands down, the most magical crowd-participation moment I’ve been a part of at a concert.

- Superchunk at Music Hall of Williamsburg, Sept. 19. I’ll save my Superchunk spiel for when I write about their record Majesty Shredding on my best albums list, but this show ruled. It should also be noted that I ran to this show from the Williamsburg Waterfont after seeing Pavement.

- Carole King & James Taylor at Madison Square Garden, June 30. When my editor jokingly handed me a CD of Carole King and James Taylor’s Troubadour Reunion Tour, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting me to respond with, “Oh, thanks, I bought tickets to see them in June!” Laugh all you want but I am a shameless Carole King fan. She is amazing, and even if you don’t like the music she performs herself (you know, “So Far Away,” “It’s Too Late,” the theme song from Gilmore Girls), just remember that she also wrote a bazillion hit songs for the likes of the Shirelles, Dusty Springfield, etc. etc. I’m not as well versed in James Taylor’s catalog, and I enjoyed his parts of the show, but King really owned it. I hope I have that much energy when I’m 68.

- Kanye West at Brooklyn Bowl. 2:30 in the morning after way too many hours at Brooklyn Bowl. This was the turning point that officially made me a Kanye fan.

- Against Me! and Green Day at Lollapalooza. SO GOOD.

- Sharon Van Etten, a million times at various venues, but especially at Mercury Lounge in November. I’ve seen Sharon Van Etten perform about six times since moving to New York, and she’s always beautiful and breathtaking but never has she been better than when she headlined Mercury Lounge. It was the first time I’d seen her with a band, and first time I heard her perform most of her incredible new record epic.

- Titus Andronicus at Brooklyn Bowl. It took me a while to get into Titus Andronicus’s album The Monitor, but it was worth the effort to keep listening. This set, while only 45 minutes long, sealed the deal. They were exhilarating and energizing, and I can’t wait to see them again.

- Yo La Tengo and Bonnie Prince Billy at Maxwell’s, Dec. 7. My first Yo La Tengo Hanukkah show will definitely not be my last (unless they stop doing them…). I haven’t listened to much of Bonnie Prince Billy’s music and had never seen him live before this, but his set blew me away. He and the band were a little kooky but so beautiful and captivating. Yo La Tengo was fantastic, too, and it was cool to see them in such a small space. Also, Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler did standup in between the bands and they were great.

- The New Pornographers at the Bell House, June 20. The full lineup of one of my all-time favorite bands, who put out a really great record this year, playing at one of my favorite (small) venues in Brooklyn.

- Belle & Sebastian at the Williamsburg Waterfront, Sept. 20. Another one of my all-time favorites, who put out a somewhat-disappointing-but-not-terrible record this year. Hadn’t seen them since 2006 (with the New Pornographers, in Toronto); this show was outside and it was supposed to storm, and by some miracle, the rain held off.

- My Brightest Diamond at Bowery Ballroom, Jan. 22. Shara Worden is something else.

- Bob Dylan at Terminal 5, Nov. 22. I had low expectations for this, as I’d never seen Bob Dylan before, but he and his band were phenomenal.

- Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings at the Apollo. First time at the Apollo, with great seats and a phenomenal band. Sharon Jones is so much fun.

Sorry I have been M.I.A. lately! I need to get better at keeping up with this. I’ve been pretty busy — went to Austin for my first year of SXSW, have been going to a sick amount of shows lately, and the whole full-time job thing is sort of time-consuming (but I’m loving pretty much every second of it).

That being said, if you want to follow some of the stuff I’m doing, add 17 Dots to your Google Reader/RSS feeds! It’s eMusic’s staff blog and I write a bunch of stuff on there. Of course you can also follow me on Twitter, too. So, uh, here are some links to stuff.

SXSW! I finally went to South By Southwest for the first time! Yes, it deserves lots of exclamation points!! My friend Dominick describes SXSW as a field trip for all the New York music people, and it totally is, although I also got to hang out with some awesome people from other states who I don’t get to see often or hadn’t met in person before.

Stuff I wrote that week:

DAY 1
17 Dots recap (Broken Bells, Warpaint, Basia Bulat, Washed Out, Rose Elinor Dougall)

DAY 2
17 Dots recap (Man/Miracle, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Sharon Jones, Peasant)
Those Darlins on Spinner.com (ridiculous!)
Sharon Van Etten and Sarah Jaffe on Spinner.com (They will blow your mind! Especially in a church.)

DAY 3
17 Dots recap (Standard Fare, Local Natives, the Antlers, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Mayer Hawthorne)
The Antlers on Spinner.com (Amazing! But that’s nothing new)

DAY 4
17 Dots recap (Slow Club, Titus Andronicus, Peasant, the Antlers, Estelle)
Slow Club on Spinner.com

A couple of stories on Spinner.com:

Anaïs Mitchell on her folk opera, Hadestown

Dead Meadow on their concert film

A bunch of show writeups with LOTS of photos (all on 17 Dots):

Clogs (members of the National, w/ Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and Sufjan Stevens) at the Bell House, March 24

Miike Snow and Delorean at Bowery Ballroom, March 28

She & Him and the Living Sisters at Bowery Ballroom, March 29

Micachu & the Shapes at Le Poisson Rouge, March 31

The Low Anthem at Bowery Ballroom, April 14

Kaki King at Music Hall of Williamsburg, April 15

Owen Pallett at Webster Hall, April 22

Anaïs Mitchell at Joe’s Pub, April 23

Aaaand, a few record reviews while I’m at it [EDIT: I learned that if you don't have an eMusic account, you probably can't see these reviews; I'll be posting them on here probably in the near future!]:

Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown on Critical Mob

White Hinterland’s Kairos on Critical Mob

Tori Amos’s From the Choirgirl Hotel on eMusic

The Morning Benders’ Big Echo on eMusic

Dr. Dog’s Shame, Shame on eMusic

Sarah Jaffe’s Suburban Nature on eMusic

Nathaniel Rateliff’s In Memory of Loss on eMusic

Just trust me on this: Ebony Bones is going to be huge. When my friends and I walked into Mercury Lounge on Tuesday night (Jan. 26), we were given feather masks and whistles, if that says anything about what was about to happen. I’ll let the photos say it all because I’m writing about her for real and should save my words for that.

Ebony Bones’ MySpace

Review of My Brightest Diamond’s Jan. 22 show at Bowery Ballroom on Spinner.com

Shara Worden (aka My Brightest Diamond) absolutely blows my mind. Her records are amazing, but when she performs she is just so incredibly beautiful and captivating and charming and all I can do is be all gushy and mushy when talking about her (oh! and she’s a Michigan native!). She had a girl making balloon hats and swords and animals before the show, the band threw confetti at us right when they got on stage (hole-punch holes + my curly hair = not so great), and gave out party hats. Basia Bulat opened and she was also wonderful and her great new record, Heart Of My Own, came out yesterday.

My Brightest Diamond’s MySpace
Basia Bulat’s MySpace

Basia Bulat

My Brightest Diamond

On Thursday I got to see my cousin Hadar perform and she absolutely blew me away (I am not just saying this because she’s my cousin!). She just released her debut album, In My Shoes, so it was her CD release show, at The Bitter End in Manhattan (yep, the same place Lady Gaga played just a few years ago, before she was Lady Gaga).

A little background: Hadar was born and raised in Israel, went to college at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and moved to New York after that. Her music is contemporary pop/rock, which isn’t generally the kind of stuff I listen to, but, like I said, seeing her perform totally blew me away. She’s a great songwriter, has an amazing voice, and a wonderful stage presence, not to mention she’s one of the many incredible feminists in my family, which really comes through in her music. She’s going to have some more shows coming up in New York so check out her MySpace for more info!

Review of A Camp’s Nov. 17 show at Le Poisson Rouge on Spinner.com

A Camp is Nina Persson from the Cardigans, her husband Nathan Larson, and Niclas Frisk, and at their show last night they played with a bunch of pretty badass musicians, including ex–Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, and members of Beirut and Antony and the Johnsons. The venue setup (tables with a two-item-per-person minimum) was awful and I totally busted my kneecaps from kneeling to take photos for eight songs, but it was a really lovely show (and my first piece for AOL’s Spinner.com, hooray)!

Setlist:

“Angel Of Sadness”
“The Crowning”
“Frequent Flyer”
“Bear On The Beach”
“Algebra”
“I’ve Done It Again” (Grace Jones cover)
“Golden Teeth And Silver Medals”
“I Signed The Line”
“Chinatown”
“Love Has Left The Room”
“Stronger Than Jesus”
“The Weed Had Got There First”

Encore:
“Song For The Leftovers”
“I Can Buy You”
“Us and Them” (Pink Floyd cover)

The Noah & the Whale I saw last week = totally not as happy as the Noah & the Whale I saw in Ferndale last April.

Review of Noah & the Whale’s Nov. 2 show @ Mercury Lounge on self-titledmag.com

Noah & the Whale’s MySpace (new album, The First Days of Spring, out now on Cherrytree)

Review of Sufjan Stevens’ Oct. 5, 2009, show at Bowery Ballroom on UnderTheRadarMag.com (photos here)

Anyway, this was my first time seeing Sufjan Stevens and he was just…mesmerizing, even though he kinda looked like a bro. He was so, so good and this is one of my favorite shows I’ve been to recently (and that says a lot). It was one of four sold-out gigs in NYC (two at Bowery and two at Music Hall of Williamsburg), all at 550-capacity venues. It was also my first night with my Canon Rebel XS, my first DSLR, and I’m loving it.

This was a little while ago but…one of my favorite shows since I’ve been in New York. So much energy, soooo much fun, and I am so proud that he is a Jewish dude from Michigan. Mentioned it already but his album, A Strange Arrangement (out now on Stones Throw) will absolutely be near the top of my best of ’09 list…I should probably start making that, eh?

Review of Mayer Hawthorne’s Oct. 3 show at Brooklyn Bowl on UnderTheRadarMag.com
You can check out my photos from the show here.

Mayer Hawthorne’s MySpace

Woooo, finally posted.

Review of Phoenix and Passion Pit’s Sept. 26 show at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield on UnderTheRadarMag.com

You can check out my photos from the show here

Also, this show marks my last time being in a photo pit with a dinky point-and-shoot! Get ready for much better shots starting with Sufjan Stevens, which hopefully will be up this week. Before that, look out for my Mayer Hawthorne review, which hopefully will be up before that (you can check out my photos here though).