It was a night of dichotomies from the start. In New York, where privacy is scarce, a "private" show like the hour-long set Rufus Wainwright played at the Rose Bar Monday night translates to a celeb-clogged affair. Indeed, Susan Sarandon perched nonchalantly at a small table across from Michael Kors, while Drew Barrymore and Scarlett Johansson mingled nearby.

"We just really like to play music," MGMT singer/guitarist Andrew Vanwyngarden said Sunday night at New York City's Mercury Lounge, where his five-piece band unveiled their second album, Congratulations, with a secret gig. He wasn't kidding -- and it showed.

With a debut album recorded and tucked away for a June release, Young Veins -- the new band from former Panic! at the Disco members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker -- played its first show together on Saturday night at The Echo on Los Angeles' East Side.

Some nights are just meant to be. The perfect band in the perfect venue on a perfect night in a town so perfect its number one export is the picture postcard. Such was the case Saturday when Air launched the North American leg of their Love 2 Tour at Miami Beach's Fillmore Gleason Theatre.

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

Atlanta's R&B star Janelle Monae debuted her May 18 release, The ArchAndroid, with an exclusive listening party in New York Thursday night, and like her music, the event was loads of tripped-out fun -- Diddy even patched in via webcam from his Paris hotel suite to join the party.