Brisbane arts in review: Top 10 Concerts Beyonce wowed Brisbane fans. Photo: Rob Hoffman/Invision There were a lot of great gigs around the River City this year. So many that Natalie Bochenski and Dan Nancarrow had to extend the Top 5 list to a Top 10. See what topped their list, then have your say. Sir Cliff Richard (Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, February 2) Pink bounces into action during her Australian tour. One Direction may have won the title of "Most High-Pitched Screaming Females in One Place," but Sir Cliff wasn't far behind. His audience of mostly baby boomer women nearly tore the BCEC to pieces in their enthusiasm for the great granddaddy of British rock 'n' roll. Sir Cliff did what a lot of more "mature" acts refuse to do: he ditched his lesser known material and concentrated on the hits (The Young Ones! Summer Holiday!), and built rapport with the audience with choice anecdotes about his 50-plus years in showbiz. And Sir Cliff is now old enough that the songs you considered naff when you were a kid have come full circle to be really fun again (see Wired for Sound, Devil Woman). When you've got your mum sitting beside you grinning and singing along like she is a teenager again, you know the performer is doing something right. Violent Soho (The Zoo, October 27) The Sunday night of the Mansfield boys' two-night stand supporting Hungry Ghost in their hometown was like a timewarp back to the 1990s - flannel-clad kids in their twenties moshing and crowd surfing to fuzzed out rock. This was a night of pure energy and good-natured fun that only a group of beer-swilling Brisbane lads could conjure up. The new album (perhaps the best of the year) displays a maturing approach to songcraft but, thankfully, the adolescent energy hasn't faded away. Bon Jovi plays at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium. Beyonce (Brisbane Entertainment Centre, October 28/29) The Mrs Carter World Tour didn't revolutionise large scale pop concerts, but it was certainly not a dud. Beyonce was, as always, in phenomenal form, her rich vocals boosted by clever arrangements and a kickass all-female band. It contained technical staging surprises, fantastic dancing, and gorgeous costumes. Queen Bey's own brand of self-empowerment was on display with supporting videos that were at time a touch cloying, but then seeing Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it) live made up for all of that. It was also a pleasant novelty that Queen Bey didn't schedule in a staged encore, rather she segued from the first verse of I Will Always Love You into a superb version of Halo, thanked her band, and disappeared back into Beyonceland. A class act. Pink (Brisbane Entertainment Centre, July/August) Pink sold out an extraordinary run of eight shows at Boondall, with many fans going back for a second or third encounter with The Truth About Love tour. Featuring Pink's usual fearless physical antics - aerials and acrobatics, all in front of a mammoth set - the show delivered style and attitude. Reviewer Simon Holt said fans adored Pink's dedication, her passion and her energy, as well as left-field surprises like a Cyndi Lauper cover. Pink will be back again, and time after time her fans will follow her - for very good reason. The Melvins (The Hi-Fi, December 8) An awe-inspring display of pure power, The Melvins blew co-headliners Helmet off the stage with blast after blast of bottom heavy sludge rock. Two drummers might look gimmicky visually but the combination live was undeniably ferocious, the impact flooring. Drawing heavily from the latter half of their 30-year career, the Washington foursome were seemingly flawless from monstrous opener Hag Me to Lysol closer Roman Dog Bird, through pace-shifting set list highlight and Wipers cover Youth of America. After 14 songs they finished without an encore, but when you're wearing a creepy grandman mumu like the one Buzz was sporting, that kind of posturing just isn't necessary. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello and the E Street Band had the Brisbane Entertainment Centre crowd eating out of their hands. Bon Jovi (Suncorp Stadium, December 17) The New Jersey rockers (minus Richie Sambora) slide into the Top Ten due mostly to nostalgia. Sure, they can still produce music, but the crowd at Suncorp Stadium was mostly there for the classics: You Give Love a Bad Name, It's My Life, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, Bad Medicine, Wanted Dead or Alive, and of course the big guns, Livin On a Prayer and Always. The 60,000 strong audience lapped up every guitar solo, drum smash or synth strike that reminded them of those glory days of the 1980s and 1990s. Mention must also be made of the epic set and Jon Bon Jovi's relentless energy on his final show of the tour. All naffness aside, he really was a consummate performer who obviously relished his job. Taylor Swift (Suncorp Stadium December 7) Arguably the world's biggest pop star right now, Taylor Swift began her mammoth Red concert by remembering her first visit to the River City - the Tivoli back in 2009. It was that humbleness and good humour that endeared her to the local crowd as much as her enormous talent as a musician and singer. According to our reviewer, Georgia Atwell-Moore: "as soon as you felt as though she was lingering on some of her slower songs such as You Belong to Me and All Too Well, she would either pick up the pace with an upbeat pop anthem - I Knew You Were Trouble - or pick up another instrument." Even a technical glitch - lights going out and part of a staging element collapsing - couldn't dampen the Swift wind. Jeremy Neale (The Tivoli, June 28) Brisbane-based Neale was on the same bill as Triple J favourites Ball Park Music and Melbourne's Eagle and the Worm, but for our reviewer Andrew Stafford, the infectious energy of the support outshone the headliners. Neither act, frankly, could come up with anything remotely as good as [single In Stranger Times], which closed Neale's set: it recalls everything from the peak of Motown to the Beach Boys (with a Dick Dale-style surf solo thrown in for good measure). Neale recently won the Queensland government's annual $10,000 Billy Thorpe scholarship, and is starting work on his debut album. Expect him onstage even more in 2014. Black Sabbath (Brisbane Entertainment Centre, April 25) If rock and roll is the devil's music, then Satan really couldn't have been prouder of his vanguard in 2013. Black Sabbath released a new album and supported it with a concert that made Cannibal Corpse look like Michael Buble. Ozzy Osbourne, known in more recent times as a doddering confused old Englishman, came alive with those pounding drums and chorus-less songs, rambling about the stage and throwing buckets of water over the audience. The new material went down well, but old favourites like War Pigs, Iron Man and of course Paranoid drove the crowd into a frenzy. Brilliant and brain bursting from start to finish. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (Brisbane Entertainment Centre, March 14/16) Opening his first Australian tour in 10 years over two nights at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, the New Jersey rocker thrilled the first night crowd with a grab-bag of hit singles (Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark), fan favourites (Murder Incorporated, Because the Night) and a hat-tipping cover of The Saints' Just Like Fire Would. Somehow the second night show managed to raise the stakes with a big band version of Open All Night, the arena-shrinking intimacy of Blinded by the Light and a heart-breaking Racing in the Street. Still, the centrepiece of the tour's set remained the full band take on The Ghost of Tom Joad, guest guitarist Tom Morello taking the E Street Band into new territory with a face melting solo. They were so well received by audiences around the country they'll be returning in March 2014.