New Year's Eve concerts and live music in New York

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

• Critics choice
• Free

Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Former Dresden Doll and cult pinup Amanda Palmer—who managed to drum up $1.2 million from fans to help fund her latest record, Theatre Is Evil—brings her theatrical spectacle of a show to NYC's foremost campus of culture.

Anthony da Costa and Friends + Tony Scherr Trio + Tall Tall Trees

• Price band: 2/4

Twangy, earnest young folk-rocker Anthony da Costa hosts "We Still Exist! A Post-Apocalyptic New Year's Eve" tonight, with pals such as jazz bassist Tony Scherr's killer trio (which includes downtown drum legend Anton Fier), plus locals Tall Tall Trees, who play low-key, rootsy throwbacks that would have found a nice place in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Arturo O'Farrill and the O'Farrill Family Band

• Price band: 3/4

Pianist Arturo O'Farrill, trumpeter Adam O'Farrill and drummer Zack O'Farrill—son and grandsons of Chico O'Farrill, respectively, and Latin-jazz heavyweights in their own right—ring in 2013 with a pair of family-affair sets.

The Bad Plus

• Price band: 2/4
• Critics choice

Alt-jazz phenomenon the Bad Plus made its name—and earned itself a few haters—interpreting favorites by Blondie, Nirvana, Black Sabbath and other rock icons. Lately, though, the spotlight has been turned where it should have been all along: on the trio's striking, inventive postbop-gone-pop originals. Still celebrating the release of Made Possible, its latest LP, the band returns to the venerable Village Vanguard, where it has recently established a refreshingly offbeat New Year's Eve tradition.

Blonde Redhead + Beach Fossils + Bubbles

• Price band: 2/4
• Critics choice

It's been a couple years since NYC's hyperchic Blonde Redhead has played its adopted hometown, but the identical Pace twins and singer Kazu Makino return tonight with what's sure to be a goosebump-inducing New Year's Eve set of elegant and glacially atmospheric indie rock. In support are Brooklyn's twinkly psych-surf outfit Beach Fossils and the groovily laid-back electropop duo Bubbles.

Chris Botti

• Price band: 2/4

Chris Botti’s popularity is sooo not about his playing that you’d be forgiven for thinking his trumpet skills are lacking. They’re actually as good as his telegenic looks, even if he rarely puts them to use playing the kind of bop he cut his teeth on. A consummate showman, Botti takes over the Blue Note through year's end and beyond; performances tend to sell out early (as New Year's Eve already has, evidently), so call first.

Coldplay + Jay-Z

• Price band: 3/4
• Critics choice

Say what you like about Coldplay’s unabashedly anthemic brand of indie rock, but these Londoners have their live shows locked down—all the tightly honed hits delivered with a winning mix of sincerity and stadium bombast. Plus, Jay-Z will join his pals to coheadline the final show and usher in 2013. As New Year’s Eve blowouts go, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more high-profile or impressive collaboration.

Countdown 2013: New Year's Eve Celebration

• Price band: 4/4

Pianist Harold Mabern and tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander welcome vocalist Vivian Sessoms as Countdown 2013 reaches its festive peak—which ain't the end of the series by a long shot.

The Fab Faux

• Price band: 3/4

The Fab Faux, Manhattan's premier Beatles tribute band, gets the sound down pretty well, which is not surprising given its members' considerable chops: Bassist Will Lee has played with all four real Beatles and currently plays with Paul Shaffer on Letterman. This week the band plays five—five!—holiday shows in the run-up to New Year's; NYE has the Fabs playing orchestral Beatles and Rubber Soul in full.

The Felice Brothers + Yellowbirds

• Critics choice

The Felice Brothers strive for roots-rock authenticity à la Bob Dylan and the Band, and on their latest album, God Bless You, Amigo, they blend trad folk standards with original material. Tonight these highly engaging performers usher in the New Year with the help of Brooklyn's Mail the Horse (Mon 31 only), which serves up retro-leaning riffs and honky-tonk piano.

Manitoba + Sylvain Sylvain + The A-Bones + Daddy Long Legs

• Price band: 2/4

Handsome Dick Manitoba, a member of NYC glam-punk old-schoolers the Dictators and a perennial downtown fixture, heads up a sure-to-be-raucous New Year's affair. New York Doll Sylvain Sylvain, long-running NYC garage-rock outfit the A-Bones and harp-toting, Dobro-playing local blues wildman Daddy Long Legs set the stage.

Marc Ribot's Bells at Midnight + Jon Madof's Zion 80

• Price band: 2/4
• Critics choice

In what has become a tradition at the Stone, guitarist Marc Ribot leads his Spiritual Unity combo in a rendition of Albert Ayler's "Bells" to greet the New Year's arrival. Show up early to catch a percolating set by fellow guitarist Jon Madof's new Afro-Jewish jam unit; even paying two admission fees, you're probably shelling out less than you would anywhere else in town.

Mediterranean, Balkan and Gypsy New Year's Eve Party

• Price band: 2/4

The New York Gypsy All-Stars, Emre Yilmaz, DJ Poodlecannon and dancer Kristina Melike help you party your way into 2013.

Nas

• Price band: 3/4
• Critics choice

Million-record-selling Queens hip-hop star Nas will set Radio City Hall alight tonight for this New Year's Eve throwdown. Expect plenty of tunes from his tenth album, Life Is Good—a fine return to form, encompassing both funk-fried fury and soulful introspection—and, we hope, a liberal dose of his seminal 1994 album Illmatic and its follow-up, It Was Written. The 39-year-old remains a formidable talent.

New Year's Eve Gala with the Mingus Big Band

• Price band: 3/4
• Critics choice

If you're feeling like you better get hit in your soul for the arrival of a fresh year, then there's no better place to do it than in the company of this Mingus ensemble. Don't call it a ghost band; it's a repertory company steeped in the holy spirit and down with the devil blues.

New Year's Eve with Holy Ghost! + Midnight Magic

• Price band: 2/4
• Critics choice

Brooklyn Bowl rolls into the New Year to the sounds of nu-disco, care of local hotshot DFA-label duo Holy Ghost! and their former tourmates Midnight Magic, a Billyburg-based disco revivalist band. After the bands, DFA's Juan MacLean (a great spinner, by the way) takes over with a DJ set.

Nick Moran Trio

• Price band: 1/4

Guitarist Nick Moran heads up a funky trio as part of Bar Next Door's New Year's festivities.

Phish

• Price band: 3/4
• Critics choice

Was last year's New Year's Day show a failed experiment? Hard to say, but we notice that this seasoned jam band, reunited and toned-up after what must have been a refreshing extended vacation, pays its annual New Year's Eve visit to the Garden sans January 1 chaser.

Pretty Lights

• Price band: 3/4
• Critics choice

Producer Derek Vincent Smith, better known as Pretty Lights, mixes so many flavors—Portishead atmospherics, early-’90s rave, gangsta rap and big beat, to name a handful—it’s a little like eating 20 different types of candy all at once. Smith plays two sold-out shows at Roseland, including a blowout to usher in the new year.

Punch Brothers

• Price band: 2/4
• Critics choice

Spend the run-up to New Year's Eve, the big night itself or, hell, all three evenings in the company of newgrass prodigy and songwriting genius Chris Thile and his Punch Brothers: five dapper, sophisticated young men who definitely know how to pace an evening's revelries.

Rachel Potter + The Vanity Belles

• Price band: 2/4

Broadway starlet Rachel Potter, currently appearing as the Mistress in Evita, goes country on her debut EP, Live the Dream, and tonight picks up the tempo for a New Year's party.

Raya Brass Band

• Price band: 1/4

Raya Brass Band specializes in the music of northern Greece, the southern Balkans and the Romany people. Tonight the groovesome group helps you ring in 2013.

Reverend Vince Anderson and His Love Choir

• Price band: 1/4

Somewhere between Wesley Willis and Tammy Faye Messner is the Reverend Vince Anderson, a self-styled "dirty gospel" musician with a gravelly voice and a penchant for lightning-fast organ playing. If you're looking for a raucous, ridiculous (and cheap) way to ring in the New Year, we suggest you snap up your ten-buck ticket now.

Ring in the Swing: A New Year's Dance Party

• Price band: 4/4

Greet 2013 as it comes creeping down 59th Street, through the big, beautiful windows of Lincoln Center's swanky Allen Room, as you dance the night away to the strains of the Harlem Renaissance Orchestra.

RJD2

• Price band: 2/4

Ring in 2013 with an evening of lush groovescapes courtesy of unpredictable beatsmith RJD2 and ’80s-obsessed synth wrangler Com Truise.

Spirit Family Reunion + Christopher Paul Stelling + Thick Wild

Rabble-rousing Brooklyn folkies Spirit Family Reunion deliver foot-stomping, throaty, joyful songs at this LES NYE party.

T Blues Band + Michael Powers

• Price band: 1/4
• Critics choice

Singer-guitarist Michael Powers behaves like he has a Delta hellhound on his trail. We’re not so sure that’s the case, but the gritty soul on his record Prodigal Son befits a cat who apprenticed with James Cotton.

They Might Be Giants

• Price band: 2/4
• Critics choice

Whether your year was good or bad, it's tough to imagine a band that can either amplify your joy or pull you up from the doldrums with the sure-fire versatility and personality of TMBG. (Of course, if you've not got your New Year's Eve tickets lined up already, knowing what you're missing won't improve matters—in which case, forget we said anything.)

Wynton Marsalis Meets Vince Giordano

• Price band: 4/4

We get it: Wynton Marsalis is a superstar, Dizzy's is a pretty intimate space, and New Year's Eve in one of New York's tonier jazz clubs ought to command a premium price. Still, if you ask us, charging this much to catch Marsalis, Vince Giordano and their bandmates re-creating Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens hits a blue note of a whole ’nuther kind.