​The year in music, circa 2010, started at the Cake Shop, with a shred-down to the New Year courtesy of Siren Festival MVP-to-be Marissa Paternoster and her band Screaming Females. After a tour through the NYE fetes of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, that night ended amidst a marathon show at Bushwick's Shea Stadium, right around the time the Blastoids' drummer poured paint on his kit and started splattering away.

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Stephen Malkmus, at the first of Pavement's 50 shows here. Pics by Rob unless noted otherwise.

​The 100-plus shows I saw this year spanned from the Cake Shop to Radio City Music Hall, from Williamsburg block parties to Michael Bolton's house in Connecticut, the events that occurred therein all furtively documented on an iPhone notepad and sometimes captured via relentlessly amateurish photography. The best were a mix of usual suspects and total surprises, current hitmakers and reconstructed old-timers, all hitting whatever stage with some combination of joy, ferocity, indifference, disdain, and messianic grandeur. Here are the 10 that made my imminent hearing loss seem nonetheless somehow totally worth it.

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Still talking about sex, albeit very briefly. Pics by Rebecca Smeyne, more below.

​Salt-N-Pepa/Naughty by Nature/Slick Rick
Wingate Field
Monday, August 2

"Y'all look like a free concert out here," notes Salt wryly, shortly before launching into "I'll Take Your Man" in front of, indeed, thousands and thousands of nostalgia-crazed people. Yes, it's a "Y'all remember this one?" sort of show, which is great, actually, when we're asked to remember stuff like "Push It," "Hip Hop Hooray," "Children's Story," and the dynamic public-speaking acumen of Marty Markowitz.

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