The National craft nuanced, studied, multi-textured rock anthems, and take their time to do so -- High Violet is their first release in four 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