Featured You R Here member clubkingsnake has uploaded a new batch of photos from recent concerts, including a Plain White T’s show in Toronto that took place on one of their nights off from opening for Fall Out Boy.

Check out all of clubkingsnake’s uploads at yourhere.mtv.com…

If names like Alex Mauer, No Carrier, Gijs Gieskes and Neil Voss don’t ring any bells, don’t worry. I had no clue who they were either. Before Thursday night, I had no clue what the Blip Festival was.

Probably the niche of all niches, the Blip Festival is a four-day audio and visual experience taking place in New York City from November 29 through December 2. According to the festival’s Web site, “the Blip Festival showcases artists adopting and repurposing familiar but forgotten hardware — such as the Commodore 64, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Atari game console and home computer line, and the Nintendo Game Boy — exploring their untapped potential and unique aesthetic character.”

I was skeptical at first about the whole event. The Blip Festival wasn’t your typical concert. Instead of a stage crew setting up the band’s instruments or a DJ spinning records, artists literally brought Game Boys to hook up to a mixer. I wasn’t sure that they would be able to create much of a show.

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Earlier this week I was having breakfast at one of my favourite greasy-spoon cafes (pronounced caff) in London, when I got a call from an old friend of mine Don, the esteemed manager of one of the greatest musical minds of this generation — Kanye West. It’s been a really tough time for Kanye, having recently lost his mother, Donda — a fantastic woman who I’m proud to have known. The tragic news hit Kanye whilst he was on his world tour, and understandably it tore his world apart.

After a period of mourning and her funeral in Chicago — an event that saw the whole community come out — Kanye made the decision to continue with his tour as his mother “would have wanted.” Don told me that they had just arrived to London and that the next night he was taking to the stage in front of a sell-out 20,000-strong crowd at the O2 Arena (formerly known as the Millennium Dome) in South East London. I rarely miss a Kanye performance if we’re in the same town, and although part of me would like him to take a rest at this time, I respect his decision, which stands as a testament to his character and relentless dedication to his fans.

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- What begins as a concert review of The Academy Is… quickly turns into a rant about spoiled teenagers and a lament about what happens when one of your favorite bands becomes popular. (Observations and Musings of a Confused College Student and Wannabe Musician)

- “If you ever wanted to see a band with two lead singers and three more singing backup, a volley of instruments such as mandolins, accordions, banjos, tin whistle, acoustic and electric guitars and the ever famous bagpipes, Drop Kick Murphys are the band. It was also one of the loudest shows I’ve seen. It took me three days to get my hearing back.” (Club Kingsnake)

- “Throughout Iron & Wine’s set, one guy kept yelling out, asking Sam to play ‘Jezebel.’ Before the last song, Sam said, “We’ll play one more tune — it probably won’t be ‘Jezebel,’ though.’ It ended up being ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth,’ the last track of his most recent album, but when he came back for an encore, he played ‘Jezebel’ acoustically — just about the most gorgeous version of the song I’ve ever heard.” (LiveJournal)

- “Went to the Big D and the Kids Table concert last night. … The opening bands were Brain Failure, from China, and Whole Wheat Bread, from Florida. Talk about exotic! … WWB played a punk version of [that song where Lil’ Jon sings,] ‘From the window to the wall,’ and ‘Gettin Krunk,’ then they did the Soulja Boy. I’m a fan.” (I van the Starving Artist)

In this digital age, a music fan often goes to a show already knowing what the set list will be, how many encores to expect, even what the singer wears.

Blogs and the like have taken some of the surprise out of live music, which is exactly why Mike Doughty’s Question Jar Tour is so damn fun.

Not only is the set list completely different each night (it’s all requests), but so is the onstage banter, which is driven by fielding fan questions from a jar.

Maybe I just had too much fun discovering music in the ’90s, which I’m — plug alert — reliving every Friday night by DJing Tubthump, L.A.’s only ’90s night, but to me Soul Coughing stand as one of music’s most exciting bands.

Since their split, I’ve followed Mike Doughty’s solo career closely and loved everything he’s done. His voice is the sound of honesty. His love-torn, pop-culture-filled lyrics are a blast to discover and then rediscover again and again. And damned if his tracks aren’t filled with the dopest white-boy beats since Beck.

He also puts on a great show, so the question and request themes only added to the fun.

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- Auckland, New Zealand, blogger “EsotericGlamour” caught the tail end of Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds tour and had this to say: “The concert last night was AWESOME. Justin had such a great stage presence, and he definitely knew how to work the crowd. My night would have been perfect … if not for some stupid chick pushing. But I was in the mosh pit. Oh well.” (EsotericGlamour)

- You R Here member and concert blogger Amateur Chemist checks in again with some shots and thoughts from the Cold War Kids show at L.A.’s Wiltern: “When bands start playing larger venues sometimes they lose the hunger and energy of playing small clubs. This was not the case as the Cold War Kids simply owned the stage with a gripping performance by Nathan Willett and company.” (Amateur Chemist)

- From the -ist family of blogs comes Bostonist’s review of Dinosaur Jr. at the Paradise: “For a show featuring dudes old enough to be your dad, it rocked much harder than most indie bands do today. … The show could easily have been about nostalgia, but it served primarily as a serious reminder that the guys in the band can still play hard enough to bust your eardrums.” (Bostonist)

- Another familiar name to YRH members, Club Kingsnake, posted a review this morning of the Marky Ramone and friends show Emo’s in Austin. “Marky has assembled a tight little foursome to try to replicate that Ramones magic. With a lead singer whose lanky frame and gawky presence invokes the spirit of Joey, a bass player that bears a vague resemblance to Johnny and a guitar player on lead that looks nothing like a Ramone, they blew through 20-odd songs at that standard three minutes or less pace. They weren’t the Ramones but they were damned good and as close as we will ever get to the real thing again.” (Club Kingsnake)

You R Here user TommyZ of the Tommy Z Band sends in this video showing the good and bad sides of Djibouti, where his band’s plane had to land for repairs. The Tommy Z Band recently traveled to Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq to entertain U.S. troops.

Check out all of TommyZ’s uploads at yourhere.mtv.com…

You R Here user Lawrencebean1 shares his photos from a Paramore show in Nashville, Tennessee, last Wednesday.

Check out all of Lawrencebean1’s uploads at yourhere.mtv.com…

I’m sure of it: I’m the last dude in New York City to hear the Hold Steady.

Wednesday night’s Terminal 5 show — the conclusion of band’s 16-month Boys and Girls in America tour — was packed with dudes: Budweiser-chugging, hip-flask-tugging, tobacco-chewing, weed-smoking, fist-pumping, frat boy, douche bags.

Or maybe that just describes the dude in front of me who I alternately wished great longevity for his rabid appreciation of the band and grave injury for his boneheaded, personal-space-oblivious pogoing.

Not that I blame the Hold Steady. The Brooklyn-via-Minneapolis quintet’s raucous brand of indie bar rock seems tailor made for oblivious pogoing.

Guitarist Tad Kubler (who looks like a bloated Anthony Rapp) and rhythm section Bobby Drake (drums) and Galen Polivka (bass) are an agile trio. Kubler’s smart, sustained, chunky bar chords ably anchor the band’s sound: something akin to the Who meeting AC/DC filtered through the Replacements on an “on” night.

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It was a back-to-basics Bright Eyes that took the stage Monday night at Radio City Music Hall for the finale of their 2007 tour. Venues don’t get any grander than Radio City, especially at holiday time. What, you didn’t know that it’s holiday time? At Radio City they’re already doing their annual Christmas spectacular — in fact, this is their 75th anniversary, so the great hall is bedecked in gold and twinkling lights and holiday finery, and Rockettes cocktail glasses can be purchased at the concession stand.

Which made even starker the contrast with which Conor Oberst and company took the stage — no frills, just Conor, Mike Moggis, Nate Walcott, bass and drums — stripped down and in front of a plain black curtain. Gone were the white suits, gone were a few inches of Conor’s locks, gone were the strings, gone were the girls — all hallmarks of six months ago, when the band played a week of shows at New York’s Town Hall. This wasn’t Bright Eyes Unplugged, exactly — but close to it.

Which meant that most of the hour-and-45-minute show (uncommonly, satisfyingly long) had a peaceful, easy feeling. Opener “Another Travellin’ Song” traveled at a slightly more relaxed pace. “Four Winds,” Cassadaga’s fiery lead single, had more of a simmer to it; “If the Brakeman Turns My Way” was quiet and laid back, with Conor at the keys; and most ingeniously, a new, bluesy take was delivered on that quintessential NYC tune “Lua,” with Walcott wailing on the horn and a guest accordion spot by James Felice of the rootsy sibling band the Felice Brothers. (Great band — the real deal — if you don’t know ‘em, as they say, discover and download.)

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