The National craft nuanced, studied, multi-textured rock anthems, and take their time to do so -- High Violet is their first release in three years. Not coincidentally, their output requires patience to fully appreciate, and the crowd at Thursday

"This is gonna be a long night," Mayer Hawthorne said to the packed crowd at Webster Hall Thursday night after set-opener "Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'," a knee-shaking nod to the Temptations. Flashing a cheeky grin as light reflected off his thick-framed Buddy Holly spectacles, he then confessed, "I got goosebumps. I mean, c'mon, it's New York City."

The crowd had to have seen it coming. The first sign appeared the moment the curtain opened. There was the Bird and the Bee in expanded octet form with a veritable arsenal of instruments and voices at its disposal. And yet, just left of center stage stood the night's indisputable question mark: a conspicuously unattended microphone, just begging for a special guest.

Norah Jones began her North American tour Friday night at the Brady Theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- a 2,800-seat Art Deco venue. It suited Jones' performing style perfectly: both were cool and mysterious, yet approachable; beautiful, yet comfortable and welcoming.

Animal Collective, the sound chemists whose pursuit of psychedelic dance ecstasy, Merriweather Post Pavilion, landed SPIN's 2009 Album of the Year Award, conducted their biggest experiment yet Thursday night at New York's Guggenheim Museum: the premiere of an installation artwork called Transverse Temporal Gyru

Atlanta's R&B star Janelle Monae debuted her May 18 release, The ArchAndroid, with an exclusive listening party in New York Thursday night, and like her music, the event was loads of tripped-out fun -- Diddy even patched in via webcam from his Paris hotel suite to join the party.

Indie rock fans' prayers were finally answered Monday night in Auckland, NZ. Yep, it really happened: Pavement reunited for their first live concert in more than 10 years.

Watch live video from the show below!

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club kicked off its world tour Friday night in Sacramento with the elegant wall of fuzz that is "War Machine," the heady, droning track from the band's fifth and latest studio album, Beat the Devil's Tattoo.

On Saturday night in Los Angeles, Dirty Projectors threw one of the greatest and strangest shows of the year from within the airship-shaped chamber of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

A week after the Brit Awards confirmed Lady Gaga as the best new pop star of the year, Wednesday night's NME Awards bestowed her merely with Best Dressed and, presumably for the sake of sheer willfulness, Worst Dressed as well.

But then the NME Awards, voted by its readers, have always been about rock'n'roll, and 2010 was no different.