Edited By: Megan Milks and Andrew Phillips

Writers: Brent Baldwin, Chris Catania, Nick Gunn, Ryan S. Henriquez, Matt Mazur, Kevin Pearson, Zach Schonfeld, Shain Shapiro, Steve Stirling, and Adam Williams

In the past 12 months, we, the PopMatters Events staff, have gone to house shows, club shows, theater shows, arena shows—slackjawed, we’ve sat through historic collaborative events, mind-bending art-school productions, and embarrassing awards-show travesties alike. As usual, some were flat-out wastes of time, especially later, when we then had to spend precious hours painfully excreting the cogent-est of copy explaining exactly why so-and-so stunk (I dunno, maybe because it just friggin’ did!!). Of course, many performances were heart-pounding, soul-stirring memorials to what music can be, should be, and, in some cases, actually is.

Groundbreaking music or no, a show is still a show, and the show must go on. From our experience, it looks like mirrorballs, a multitude of geometrically arranged drum sets, and flying high heels are some of the best ways to leave your mark. With that in mind, we now present to you our Best (and Worst) in Show of 2007...