Jessica Misener

The Kills' show on Friday night at Terminal 5 started off with a few hiccups: spoken word poet BP Fallon sandwiched himself in as a bizarre opening act following Cold Cave; the drum machine launched into the backbeats of "Sour Cherry" a tad too early; at one point Jamie Hince had to reprimand a fellow in the audience for shoving a girl in his attempt to push closer to the stage. But throughout the rest of the tightly coiled, blistering set, Alison Mosshart and Hince demonstrated a newfound polish to their typically brash stage melee. Their usual sexual tension seemed pared down--perhaps due to Kate Moss peering down from the VIP balcony?--as Mosshart, who's recently eschewed her onstage chain smoking, settled for prowling about her own side of the stage, ripping through tracks like "Future Starts Slow" and "No Wow" as Hince's vintage guitars wailed away with their signature gritty fury. The presence of a 3-person gospel choir singing backup on "Satellite" still seems a disjointed foil for Mosshart and Hince's minimalist garage bravado, but when Mosshart took the stage solo for an aching performance of the new ballad "The Last Goodbye," we were reminded how far the Kills have come in spiraling their raw blues-rock into something fuller, heavier and more graceful. - jm

The Civil Wars are currently riding a publicity crescendo as mighty as their acclaimed blues-tinged folk, and the sold-out crowd at Rockwood Music Hall welcomed Joy Williams and John Paul White enthusiastically.  Williams sipped from a glass of red wine as she wrapped each song in her velvet blanket of a voice, and White's dobro guitar rang out sharper than southern whiskey as the pair soaked tracks like "C'est La Mort" with their penetrating chemistry. Williams and White traded glances and intertwined their strong yet rueful harmonies as the stomping, stormy twang of "Barton Hollow" flooded through the cozy venue, and at once, it became clear that The Civil Wars' devoted fans would soon be surrendering this well-deserving duo to the clutches of mainstream record-selling fame. - jm

A sold-out crowd of Brooklynites still loved their old-time rock 'n' roll enough to pack the Music Hall of Williamsburg for the inimitable Wanda Jackson on Friday night. Backed by Jack White on guitar and the Third Man Records studio band on everything else, the pint-sized queen of rockabilly shimmied in a white fringed jacket as she turned the venue into a rollicking house of good, old-fashioned rock frenzy. Self-effacingly using a lyrics sheet as she plowed through some of the tracks off her new, White-produced album The Party Ain't Over, Jackson, 73, also performed a rousing version of "Riot in Cell Block #9" and a cover of the Amy Winehouse song "I'm No Good" while White seemed giddy just squealing away by her side during his standard manic guitar solos. Even with a pair of sashaying backup singers, the retro energy never turned twee, leaving the crowd despondent after the final flush of "Shakin' All Over," when Jackson and co. whisked off the stage without an encore. - jm

Cloaked in an ethereal ivory costume and her trademark red hair, Florence Welch flitted onstage Tuesday night for the second of her 2 sold-out shows at Terminal 5. Thanks to a recent performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, the British singer and her band have leapt into the mainstream stratosphere, mostly thanks to Julia Roberts eating gelato to the tune of "Dog Days are Over" in Eat Pray Love. Wielding a single drumstick like a fairy nymph gone mad, Welch bounded and skipped across the stage, imparting her energy to the crowd on anthemic, gospel-tinged songs like "Raise It Up (Rabbit Heart)" and "Drumming Song." Her performance of the new-ish "Heavy in Your Arms" from the Twilight soundtrack reminded, via its delicate anguish, that a new Florence album is tenderly overdue. - jm

When a tall, redheaded supermodel opens her mouth, people pay attention. Last night, the sold-out crowd at Rockwood Music Hall looked on in reverential silence as the lovely Karen Elson beguiled them with the plaintive sounds from her debut album, The Ghost Who Walks. Backed by a band that included Jackson Smith, son of Patti Smith and husband of Meg White, on guitar and singer-songwriter Rachelle Garniez on a wistful accordion, Elson interspersed her charmingly spare love ballads with guest appearances and cover songs. Though flustered by a missing capo and misbehaving microphones, she demurely enchanted the crowd in between sips of white wine, including one lucky gentleman whom, when he appeared with a surrogate capo, Elson dubbed her "knight in shining armor." - jm

The xx, London's purveyors of moody dream-pop--and recent Mercury Prize winners--slinked onto stage last night in Harlem in a cloak of fog, their faces barely visible under a kaleidoscope of sumptuous stage lighting. On this final leg of their American tour, Romy Madley-Croft and Oliver Sim shyly thanked the sold-out crowd as they glided through a set of achingly minimal love songs, slipping in a gauzy cover of the 1993 Robin S. dance hit "Show Me Love" as Jamie Smith tapped out backbeats on a finger pad drum set. A true concert experience for introverts, the rubber-band guitar plinks of "Crystalised" were as rowdy as the music ever got, but the band soaked the theater to its rococo rafters with their mix of lullabies gone exquisitely rogue. - jm

The temperature soared as high as the "Am I too white to dance?" factor last night in Central Park, as British sweater-techno band Hot Chip took to the stage on a balmy, breezeless New York night. Clad in khakis and synthesizers, the band, fronted by singer Alexis Taylor, formed a geek chorale of guitars and drum machines, with Taylor peeling off layers of clothing as they pulsed through a never-ending loop of hits from their previous records as well as this summer's One Life Stand. By the time the grass-stomping closer "Ready for the Floor" sent hipsters into as much of a frenzy as irony would allow, Hot Chip had proven to humidity who would be the real winner of the night. - jm

After name-checking star tattoos and Brooklyn Vegan, and calling spitting, skulking frontwoman Alison Mosshart "the whitest person ever," Jack White put down his bottle of Veuve Clicquot and settled behind the drums for a typically furious set from The Dead Weather Tuesday night in Prospect Park. Ripping through tracks from their debut album Horehound and finishing with a flurry of bass-heavy riffs from May's Sea of Cowards, the foursome thundered along with White's snapping drumming, Jack Lawrence's lean rhythms and squealing guitar solos from Dean Fertita on songs like "I Cut Like a Buffalo" and "Die by the Drop." By the time White teased the crowd during the encore that Mosshart had commented on their lack of ebullience, the limp headbobbers had already slouched home, leaving The Dead Weather to rustle some Brooklyn storms with a final assault of their primordial, slashed-edge Gothic blues rock. - jm