Excuse Me? What?

Again, his work isn't exclusively enjoyed by such people and love for him is obviously not uniform among any particular group, but he means a great deal to a lot of folks who are not neurotypical and many other groups who don't feel included. I saw a lot of people who I think belong to those groups tonight--including my brother who is on the spectrum and the primary reason I went--and their apparent joy was so beautiful to witness.

Seeing a pretty gruff-looking dad sticking around and taking videos through the encore with his Weird Al-jacket-clad adult son, whose challenges he was probably entirely unprepared for when he was born, really got me. I felt a little odd getting emotional in that space, but shit, I say give crying in public a try. See if it's for you.

I saw 99 sets by musical artists last year (excluding the brief acoustic VIP set by Samia at Thalia Hall before her main set, which was phenomenal but doesn't feel to me like it warrants inclusion, but including Ketch Secor's interstitial emcee work at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival), and despite being a person who generally dislikes rankings, I decided to keep a running ranking of my subjective experience of each throughout the year. I got at least some genuine enjoyment from nearly all of these sets, but the ones that offered minimal value to me are in orange and the sets I genuinely disliked are in red. I'm not sure there is any real value in this exercise, but here you go. Apologies in advance, AJR fans.

Wet Leg (Salt Shed, Chicago)

JR JR

Ben Kweller

Samia

Blondshell

Waxahatchee (Salt Shed, Chicago)

Tame Impala

Wet Leg (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia)

Rilo Kiley

Snocaps (12/1)

Wolf Alice

Caroline Rose

Great Grandpa (Empty Bottle, Chicago)

Great Grandpa (Lager House, Detroit)

SIdney Gish

Jay Som (Lincoln Hall, Chicago)

The Beths

Snocaps (12/2)

Snocaps (11/30)

fanclubwallet

Wednesday

Lucy Dacus

Jack White

Alabama Shakes (Mann Center, Philadelphia)

Ginger Root

Soccer Mommy (Salt Shed, Chicago)

Illuminati Hotties

Squirrel Flower

Ben Folds

"Weird Al" Yankovic

Great Grandpa (Salt Shed, Chicago)

Soccer Mommy (Newport Music Hall, Columbus)

Wet Leg (Aragon Ballroom, Chicago)

villagerrr (Schuba's Tavern, Chicago)

Alabama Shakes (Meadow Brook, Rochester Hills, MI)

Dinosaur Jr

Snail Mail

Ohly

Jay Som (Masonic Temple, Detroit)

Djo

Momma

Bonny Doon

Cake

Waxahatchee (Ann Arbor Folk Festival)

Miya Folick

La Luz

Portugal. The Man

Phoebe Rings (Empty Bottle, Chicago)

vilagerrr (Magic Stick, Detroit)

Graham Hunt

Mary in the Junkyard (Salt Shed, Chicago)

Dummy

Phoebe Rings (Salt Shed, Chicago)

Joyer

Dean Johnson

Georgia Maq

Tunde Olaniran

Post Animal

Japanese Breakfast

Mannequin Pussy

Soccer Mommy (Majestic Theatre, Detroit)

Teethe

Turnstile

Daffo

She's Green

Lindsey Kraft

Good Flying Birds

Free Range (Empty Bottle, Chicago)

Annie DiRusso

Sharp Pins

Matt Maltese

Out in Front

Free Range (Lager House, Detroit)

Willy Mason

Mary in the Junkyard (Franklin Music Hall, Philadelphia)

Cootie Catcher

Jessica Pratt

Josh Ritter

Rafaella

Afro Dominicano

Jet

Better than Ezra

Adeem the Artist

Sam Evian

Puddles Pity Party

Third Eye Blind

Beach Bunny

Maren Morris

Band of Skulls

Tomberlin

Cornelia Murr

The Budos Band

Jobi Riccio

Ketch Secor

AJR

Easy Action

208

Cloakroom