Maynard James Keenan -- the freak-show ringmaster of Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer -- perpetually promises to design spectacles that go well beyond what people expect from a rock show.

Friday night at New Orleans' Voodoo Music Experience, even chilly temps and torrents of rain couldn't keep the soggy pre-Halloween crowd – sexy nurses caked in mud, shivering bunnies and cops – from sticking around for Eminem's 9:30 PM closing set.

This year, Halloween in London provided for a truly haunting pairing. That's haunting in the "beautiful! goosebumps!" sense and not the poltergeist one, and it's entirely due to the much-hyped union of the London Symphony Orchestra with Grizzly Bear at the Barbican Centre.

For a band characterized by their fusion of bluegrass, country, and down and dirty punk rock, Nashville's Ryman Auditorium -- former home to the Grand Ole Opry and hallowed ground for country music -- is both a perfect fit and an unlikely proving ground for the Avett Brothers.

A good 24 hours before Phish hit the stage for their Halloween show -- the second of Festival 8's three-night stand at Indio, California's Empire Polo Club -- the rumors were flying fast and furious as fans tried to guess which full album the band might cover.

Eddie Vedder is a liar.

At the start of Pearl Jam's four-night stand at the Philadelphia Spectrum -- the last concerts ever at the historic arena, which is destined for demolition -- the singer pledged to the audience, "By Saturday night we're gonna try to play every song we know."