With inspiring, progressive lyrics, Ani’s distinctive voice rang through the crowd with a sense of purity and honesty. The warm, progressive energy in the room was palpable.

Even sitting high above the ground in the Hampton Coliseum, I felt like I was in a futuristic, bass-thumping, digital masterpiece of a dance club.

“We were living the rock-star, devil may care lifestyle. But as it turns out, my lungs had been compromised by years of breathing second-hand smoke,” says Joe Maniscalco, for whom there is a benefit concert Sunday.

She dyed her hair dark – maybe to match her music. The formerly tow-headed British singer-songwriter Laura Marling is what I would have aspired to be at 20 years old. Basically, I think she’s brilliant.

The band: Oh so fiery. The crowd: Oh so cold.

They’re a band of nerdy, happy, hippie, indie pirates, and they don’t give a crap. They do what they do, whether we’re watching or not. And I respect that.

Escovedo is one of the premier songwriters of our times, fluent in a ridiculous range of genres. This is the guy who opened for the last Sex Pistols show in 1978. There are echoes of everything from Lou Reed to Townes Van Zandt to Roky Erickson in his work.

When grown men are waving their beers in the air and singing “and I am a Material Girrrrlll…Materiah-ahl!,” it’s impossible not to see the power nostalgia, pop, and dancing has on people.

Writer Jim Morrison gives his top album picks of the year.

A local review of Today the Moon Tomorrow the Sun @ Hell’s Kitchen.