Whether you’re bidding 2010 a hearty, don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out farewell or commemorating its good tidings, live music is a memorable, often euphoric way to celebrate. At the very least, dancing your pants off with a room full of like-minded fans is more energizing than watching a ball sink slowly back to earth (again). Below, the pop and jazz critics of The New York Times have compiled a selection of this year’s New Year’s Eve shows that is as eclectic as the city itself. Expect exhilarating sets, wobbly renditions of “Auld Lang Syne” and maybe even a midnight peck from that stranger who knows all the words.
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STEVE ANGELLO If you only submit to punishment by one brazen, bombastic, pummeling, house-music maximalist this year, make it Steve Angello, who’s been a force for almost a decade, but who’s mastered his sound in the last couple of years: clean, slick, thumping, even a bit arch at times. He’s also part of the production/D.J. collective Swedish House Mafia, responsible for one of the year’s best brute-force dance albums, “Until One.” At 9 p.m., Roseland Ballroom, 239 West 52nd Street; (212) 247-0200;roselandballroom.com; various packages from $98.50 to $235.
CHUCK BERRY The embodiment of his mythical Johnny B. Goode, Chuck Berry had rock ’n’ roll figured out from its inception: an R&B backbeat, some country twang, a signature guitar lick and songs about cars, girls and the gumption to tell Beethoven to roll over. More than half a century later, he’s still on the road. At 8 and 11 p.m., B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, 243 West 42nd Street, Manhattan; (212) 997-4144; bbkingblues.com; 8 p.m. show, $98 advance, $100 at door, $560 for a four-person V.I.P. table; at 11 p.m. $120, $640 for a four-person VIP table.
BLOODY BEETROOTS From Italy, the Bloody Beetroots make slap-happy electro house verging on big beat. It’s king-size and, outside the United States, unusually popular. Even a collaboration with the terminally chill indie rap outfit the Cool Kids did little to calm this duo, who spin music while wearing comic-book-character masks and pumping their fists, even more pleased with themselves than the crowd is. At 3:30 a.m., Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, East Village; (212) 353-1600; websterhall.com; $60.
CLASS ACTRESS The great debut EP by Class Actress, “Journal of Ardency,” is an alluringly precise recapturing of the winning chill of early ’80s electro-pop, with some light hauteur keeping the mood severe, never optimistic. With Warm Ghost, Peephole and Phonetag. At 7:30 p.m., Spike Hill, 184-6 Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (718) 218-9737; spikehill.com; $10.
DFA RECORDS A night of pulsations from the roster of one of New York’s most important record labels of the last decade, the one that sneaked indie rock back onto the dance floor. The lineup features the fantastic disco revivalists Holy Ghost!, the house music revivalists House of House, Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem and as yet unnamed extra guests, which with any luck will include LCD Soundsystem’s primary engine, the DFA macher James Murphy, the battle-scarred nostalgist given to bubbly self-lacerations. At Le Bain at the Standard New York, 848 Washington Street, Meatpacking District;(212) 645-4646, standardhotels.com/new-york-city; $50 at the door only.
FELABRATION! The Broadway musical “Fela!,” which closes Jan. 2, escapes the cues and curfew of theater on New Year’s Eve, complete with its star, Sahr Ngaujah, and its unstoppable female dancers. The music sounds so richly African because the core of the band has been playing Fela Kuti’s music and his style, Afrobeat, since 1998 as Antibalas. In a club, that hard-nosed Nigerian funk, with its shuffling rhythm guitars and pushy horns, gets to stretch out for a dancing audience. At 10 p.m. at the Knitting Factory, 361 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (347) 529-6696; bk.knittingfactory.com; $60 to 70.
GOV’T MULE This Southern-fried jam band, led by the guitarist and singer Warren Haynes, has a tradition of sprawling New Year’s Eve shows at the Beacon Theater. This year’s edition, “Get Behind the Mule: Past, Present and Future,” comes with a twist: fans have been submitting set-list requests, with cover tunes alongside band staples (both classic and obscure). At 8 p.m. on Thursday and 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, Beacon Theater, 2124 Broadway, at 74th Street; (800) 745-3000; beacontheatre.com; $60.25 to $80.70 on Thursday, $70.45 to $97.55 on Friday.
KYLE HALL/MARTYN ET AL. Mister Saturday Night, the roaming, multileveled dance party hosted by the D.J.s Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin, puts on a New Year’s Eve event at an undisclosed location in Brooklyn. In different rooms will be the young Kyle Hall, the imaginative house-into-dubstep producer and D.J. from Detroit; and Martyn, the Dutch dubstep D.J. who grew out of drum-and-bass. At 9 p.m. until “late”; tickets are $50; location and details at residentadvisor.net/mistersaturdaynight.
LOS LOBOS This long-running Mexican-American band from East Los Angeles has multiple guises. It can sound like a rock ’n’ roll band out of some 1960s sock hop or a breezy jam band or a traditionalist Mexican band or a thoughtful folk-rock band, or all of them at once. Deep respect for roots doesn’t rule out any of their eccentricities, and they’re all the better for that. At 7:30 and 11 p.m., New York City Winery, 155 Varick Street; (212) 608-0555; citywinery.com; $60 to $225.
MAROON 5 It will be hard to know where to turn to for solace — face Maroon 5 after a long night at the blackjack tables or run back to the gambling after a couple of hours of watching this band emote. Of late, Maroon 5 has been abandoning its blue-eyed soul roots in favor of a nominally rougher sound, but its commitment to lovelorn lyrics with hints of bad attitude remains. At 9 p.m., House of Blues, 801 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, N.J.; (609) 343-4000; houseofblues.com; $65 general admission, $75 for balcony seats.
BRUNO MARS It’s been a terrific year for Bruno Mars, who helped genetically engineer a new strain of melodically-savvy crossover hip-hop as a collaborator with B.o.B, Travie McCoy and others. After that, Mr. Mars emerged as one of pop’s most refreshing new voices, thanks to his eclectic debut album “Doo-Wops & Hooligans.” On stage, he’s a showman in the old-school way: a permanent smile; slick, mature dance moves; and a huge desire to please any and all comers. At 9 p.m., Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel, 714 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan; (212) 765-7676; giltcity.com/newyork/newyearseve; packages from $950 to $5,000.
PASSION PIT/SLICK RICK They become non-indie so fast these days. Two years ago, Passion Pit was a well-meaning disco-friendly electro-pop outfit with a small, warm EP. A year later, it already felt huge, with a debut album, “Manners,” that did little to mask the group’s shameless pop ambitions and its penchant for the anthemic. Comparisons to the Bee Gees wouldn’t have been out of line, give or take tens of millions records sold. Here it shares a bill with Slick Rick, the formative 1980s rapper who was pardoned by Gov. David A. Paterson of New York in 2008 for a 1991 conviction for attempted murder, freeing him up to enliven bills like this one. At 9.m., the Wellmont Theater, 5 Seymour Street, Montclair, N.J.; (973) 783-9500; wellmonttheatre.com; $45 to $70.
PHISH The reunion of Phish has restored an annual New York City event: year-end shows by the Vermont jam band that can be virtuosic, silly, high-concept and downright surreal in the course of their nimble, sprawling sets. What stunt has it planned this year? At Madison Square Garden; (212) 465-6741; Thursday at 7:30, $72.30; New Year’s Eve at 8 p.m., $82.50; Jan. 1 at 7:30 p.m., $72.30.
ARIEL PINK For starters, the night is called Inverted Cosmos NYE 2011. Add to that the fact that the headliner is Ariel Pink, who’s specialized in shambolic psychedelia for almost a decade. And the flier (which advertises laser and light effects) is rendered in a gothic tie-dye naturalistic style. It all adds up to one big, spooky, hippie party. Based on his excellent 2010 album “Before Today,” though — which demonstrates a fluency in, and possibly even an affinity for classic song structure — Mr. Pink might be ready to move beyond the mystical vibes in 2011. In that case, zone out while you can. With Outer Limits Recordings, Autre Ne Veut, Steve Summers and others. At 8 p.m., 234 Starr Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn; dailyghost.net; $19.99.
THE ROOTS As the quick-thinking house band for “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” the Roots cultivated a certain comic affability this year (Mr. Fallon routinely recruits them for goofy skits), but the band is still a formidable musical force, artfully fusing soul, jazz, rock, funk and hip-hop. It released both its ninth studio album, “How I Got Over,” and “Wake Up!”, a collection of (mostly) soul covers with John Legend in 2010 and will be celebrating a fruitful year with three epic sets: Brooklyn Bowl has announced that it will stay open until 6 a.m. At 8 p.m., Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (718) 963-3369; brooklynbowl.com; sold out.
THE RUB Over the last few years, the Rub has developed into one of the city’s most reliable dance parties thanks to the catholic taste of its principals, D.J. Ayres, D.J. Eleven and Cosmo Baker. Expect an enthused blend of hip-hop, dancehall, electro, classic soul, Baltimore club, moombahton and other microgenres with increasingly odd appellations. Here, they’re joined by Prince Klassen and Rok One in the front room, the hip-hop classicist Evil Dee and the Afro-funk specialist Rich Medina in the back room, and in the loft, Michna, Nick Hook and the house-music stalwart Romanthony. At 9 p.m., Public Assembly, 70 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (718) 384-4586; itstherub.com; $25 to $40.
PATTI SMITH Taking her role as a rock shaman seriously, Patti Smith has an annual ritual of her own: year-end shows at the Bowery Ballroom, just a few blocks downtown from where CBGB used to be. Her mini-residency sends off the old year and blasts toward the new, likely with songs yet to be released. At 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and 8 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey Street, near the Bowery, Lower East Side; (212) 533-2111; .boweryballroom.com; $55; sold out.
TITUS ANDRONICUS/REAL ESTATE The five members of Titus Andronicus aren’t teenagers, exactly, but they lash and wail with adolescent aplomb, churning out fiery screeds about the Civil War, getting drunk and living in New Jersey. The band closes “A More Perfect Union,” from its latest album, “The Monitor” (XL), by quoting the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison: “I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.” That last bit, at least, is true: expect a glorious squall. Real Estate, also from New Jersey, plays scrappy, nostalgic psych-pop songs about growing up, or not (“You won’t be happy in your office on your phone,” Martin Courtney opines). With Andrew Cedermark and Julian Lynch. At 8 p.m., Ridgewood Masonic Temple, 1054 Bushwick Avenue, at Gates Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn; (718) 388-5087; toddpnyc.com; $15.
YERBABUENA Not to be confused with the Afro-Latin pop band Yerba Buena, this is the Puerto Rican band from New York led by the singer Tato Torres. It’s Boricua roots music with some updating and flexibility: percussive bomba and plena, jíbaro folk songs and deep electric-bass grooves. The band has been playing it for years at the Nuyorican for years and grown a following. At 9 p.m., Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 East Third Street, between Avenue B and C, Lower East Side; (212) 780-9386; nuyorican.org; $25.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Beyond Popping Corks, the Sounds of the New Year -- By AMANDA PETRUSICH, JON CARAMANICA, NATE CHINEN, JON PARELES, BEN RATLIFF, STEPHEN HOLDEN, and STEVE SMITH -- Published: December 23, 2010
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Beyond Popping Corks, the Sounds of the New Year -- By AMANDA PETRUSICH, JON CARAMANICA, NATE CHINEN, JON PARELES, BEN RATLIFF, STEPHEN HOLDEN, and STEVE SMITH -- Published: December 23, 2010
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