Among, you know, a few other things, the past 24 hours have been the start of a very, very big year for the band Rocks Off affectionately refers to as the Best Band Ever. U2 appeared alongside Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, "One" pal Mary J. Blige and many more as Barack Obama's opening acts at yesterday's massive "We are One" concert on the National Mall in Washington D.C.

"Restraint" is not a word normally associated with Bono and the boys, but they showed it yesterday. Not so much in their two-song set of "City of Blinding Lights" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" - what, did you think they would play "Exit"? - but because the band could well have used the occasion to debut the first single from its forthcoming No Line on the Horizon album (due March 3 in the U.S.), a fuzzy, frenetic little number called "Get on Your Boots."

The Gutter Twins

Maybe Rocks Off spent a lot of 2008 with his head in the archives, but he was paying attention to new stuff too. Occasionally. It's as easy as satellite radio, channel 47's (Ethel/Alt Nation) weekly new-music hour Submission/Transmission. Monday night, S/T happened to be playing its picks for the past year.

One thing is immediately apparent: the '90s are back, big time. The Black Keys' "Strange Times" is total Soundgarden, the Kills' "Tape Song" almost out-Breeders Kim Deal (for real) and the Gutter Twins actually are two Clinton-era holdovers, ex-Afghan Whig Greg Dulli and no-longer-Screaming Tree Mark Lanegan. Radiohead is ubiquitous.

So, besides the Raconteurs, Elbow's disquieting "The Bones of You," and TV on the Radio's "Crying" (love it), what else is out there?