There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of live performances every year.  Obviously I have not seen or even heard about every live performance of 2010, nor has any other music critic.  Even if I stick with only the performances that were broadcasted to a mass audience, there is still only a small percentage that I am familiar with.  Thus, the four performances that I am spotlighting may not be the four best performances of the year, but they are certainly memorable in their own right and would likely at least rank among the top one hundred performances of the year.  As it is, they are the four best live performances of 2010 that I saw.

Kanye West – “Power” on Saturday Night Live (October 2)
The SNL music stage is notorious for bad acoustics, drowning out any artist with a big sound.  It isn’t a very big stage, and history also suggests that the musical acts aren’t granted much freedom in adjusting the design of the stage.  Somehow, Kanye West convinced whoever makes the decisions that that needed to change.  Draping the stage completely in white – draping the stage in any color – is completely unheard of, as is the presence of approximately thirty backup dancers, ballerinas or otherwise.  This is prime video evidence of a musical genius at work, and evidence that he will not let anyone stand in his way as he brings his visions to fruition.

Florence + the Machine – “Dog Days are Over” at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards (September 12)
When you are a recording artist with a great voice, the question is always, do you sound as good live as you do on the record?  Better yet, do you sound better live?  If the answer is yes, then the rest of what you do live is just gravy.  So, it is always nice when an act like Florence + the Machine does not skimp on the gravy.  The blue people and the tribal outfits provided the spectacle, and the choreography was in sync.  Florence’s spinning platform set up a nice counter-synchronicity.  This performance also benefited from astute directorial choices, with plenty of ceiling shots showing off the full spectrum of the act.

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals – “Paris (Ooh La La)”/Ann and Nancy Wilson and Grace Potter & the Nocturnals – “Crazy on You” on VH1 Divas Salute the Troops (recorded December 3, aired December 5)
With a steady pattern of vocal breaks and several relatively instrumentally inactive moments, “Paris (Ooh La La)” – more than any other hit of 2010 – is perfectly structured for a great live performance.  The Nocturnals did not disappoint, hitting their riffs as they saw fit, their spontaneity winning over the crowd despite being the least-known act.  Of course, Grace really explored the space of the stage and had plenty of room to do so.  But the real highlight, no doubt, was the encore.  At the beginning of the show, I was thinking how some of these VH1 Divas, Grace Potter especially, must have been influenced by the Wilson sisters and that it would be great if they were to make a surprise appearance.  Somebody else had that same great idea.  It would have been unbearable if Grace could not have matched Ann note for note on this most vocally striking of Heart’s hits, but she pulled it off, and the reason she was able to was certainly not because Ann’s pipes have gone any bit rusty.  She was even bold enough to put her own screechy spin on the tune.  The vocal tête à tête was enough to forgive the Nocturnals for skipping a few notes on the guitar (it is a tough guitar song as well).
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She & Him – “I Put a Spell on You” on Conan (December 9)
“That was unbelievable.” – Conan O’Brien
On the opposite end of what Kanye accomplished on the SNL stage is what She & Him accomplished on the Conan stage.  This is the sort of performance you have to come up with when you don’t have 30 backup ballerinas.  It’s not like you need 30 backup dancers when you have a voice like Zooey Deschanel’s.  Hell, you barely need a guitar.  Zooey possesses one of the richest-sounding voices in music today, and in this take on the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins classic, she really explored what she could do with it.  She made the risky decision of sounding like a petulant child at several points, but somehow it worked.  And M. Ward did manage to fit in a quick little guitar solo outro.