The lionization of The Indie Years has ensued all over the city recently, and in May, a concert paying tribute to Michael Azerrad's DIY chronicle Our Band Could Be Your Life—celebrating its 10th anniversary of being in print this year—sold out the Bowery Ballroom faster than you could say "Dinosaur Jr. original pressing." The show was filled with indie acts of now (Dan Deacon, Wye Oak) paying tribute to the bands that crisscrossed the country in service of their music 20 years ago. But none of the night's brief sets lit up the Internet as much as the two songs where Annie Clark, d/b/a St. Vincent, served up an homage to the taboo-eschewing sludge-punk pioneers Big Black. She ripped her way through the threatening "Bad Penny" and the snarling, frustrated "Kerosene," thrashing at her guitar and throttling her microphone while the crowd churned in front of her. Later this year, Clark released the superb Strange Mercy (Beggars); the overt tension that ran through her performance is on the album presented as more of a simmering presence, but it doesn't thrill any less.