2008 was my second year of semiweekly live music reporting for the Baltimore City Paper's Noise blog, and by far the most concerts and musical performances I ever saw in one year (roughly 70 by my count, including 10 at the Ottobar alone). I saw musicians perform at clubs, arenas, race tracks, opera houses, recording studios, convention centers, museums, street festivals, art galleries, churches, lofts, movie theaters, and a Best Buy, all in the Baltimore or Washington area. Local nobodies thrilled me and touring superstars bored me and vice versa. So before another year passes and the last one starts to blur together, let me try to figure out my favorite memories, which unsurprisingly feature some of the people as my 2007 list. I wrote about a couple of these shows on the City Paper's The Year In Live Music list, but I wanted to go ahead and do my own whole big list again. All I can say is, thank god I started wearing earplugs again. Artists in each show are listed in order of enjoyment:

1. Faraquet/Statehood @ the Black Cat
2. J-Roddy Walston and The Business/Grand Buffet/Soul Cannon @ The Ottobar
3. Evangelista/Vampire Hands/Garland of Hours @ the Velvet Lounge
4. Mullyman/Skarr Akbar/Comp/Little Clayway/Teop/Heavy Gold/1st Family/Huli Shallone/ SL Danga/Al Great @ Sonar
6. Firewater @ The Ottobar
7. Noble Lake/Golden Ghost/Viking Moses/Andy Abelow @ Floristree
8. Ellen Cherry @ Mobtown Studios
9. The Bow-Legged Gorilla/Magical Beautiful/Beans @ the Windup Space
10. Jonathan Richman @ the 8x10
11. Joan Jett/Dru Hill/K-Swift/Blaq Starr/Oranges Band/Mario @ Artscape
12. Avec/Karmella's Game/Remote Islands/A Sunny Day In Glasgow @ the Lo-Fi Social Club
13. Kix @ Ram's Head Live
14. Wye Oak/Deer Tick/Musee Mecanique @ the G-Spot
15. Little Feat @ the 9:30 Club
16. Nine Inch Nails/Shudder To Think/Paramore/Lil Wayne/Foo
Fighters/Stone Temple Pilots @ Virgin Mobile Festival
17. Diablo/Backyard Band/Rod Lee @ the Baltimore Museum of Industry
18. The Art Department/Turtle Neck Store/The Extraordinaires/The Microwave Background @ The Ottobar
19. Pearl Jam/Ted Leo @ the Verizon Center
20. John Legend/Raphael Saadiq @ the Lyric Opera House

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 11:16 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.