With not only a year but an entire decade of music to celebrate, we’ll be bringing you our “Best of” 2009 lists all week long. We begin with our favorite 10 live shows of the year, followed later this week by our favorite albums of the year and our 101 favorite albums of the decade.
Nothing could be more regionally subjective and personally oriented than naming the ten best live concerts you saw in a given year. But for the sake of my own memory and comparison with other such lists, here are the best 10 shows I saw this year, with free download links and reviews when available.
Salute to DJ Premier & Pete Rock – 12/12/09, Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC (review)
Phish – 12/5/09 John Paul Jones Arena, Charlottesville, VA (dl) (review)
Widespread Panic/Allman Brothers Band – 10/11/09 Raleigh, NC (review)
Nine Inch Nails – 6/13/09 Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN (dl) (review)
Wilco – 6/13/09, Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN (dl) (review)
Okkervil River – 6/14/09 Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN (review)
Eric Bachmann – 7/22/09 Duke Gardens, Durham, NC (review)
Umphrey’s McGee – 2/21/09 The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC (dl) (review)
Janiva Magness – 7/17/09 Blue Bayou Club, Hillsborough, NC (review)
Phish – 3/8/09 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA (dl) (review)
We hope you’ll come back to check out our favorite albums of the decade and the year! Putting together these lists has been a labor of love, and we think they’re a lot of fun. We hope you do too!
The Wounded Messenger 