Music fans of rock, pop, a cappella, and everything in between could find a concert to enjoy in 2018 thanks to the wide assortment of talent that visited Connecticut and New York this year.

After Canadian electro-pop powerhouse Lights released her 14-track concept record Skin & Earth and her much-anticipated debut comic series titled under the album’s same moniker, she set off on her We Were Here Tour that made a local stop at Irving Plaza in New York City on February 26.

Also performing at Irving Plaza this year was 3OH!3 for their Want House Party Tour with Emo Nite on November 27. The tour celebrated the band’s ten-year anniversary of their certified gold album Want, which featured radio hit “Don’t Trust Me.”

3OH!3 even made a local stop in Hartford earlier this year, with nearly 100 other musical acts, when the Vans Warped Tour stopped at the Xfinity Theatre on July 15. The summer festival, founded by Kevin Lyman, had been a staple in the alternative music community for 23 consecutive years and made its final lap around the country in 2018.

On the eve of the first day of school for the Newtown district, families flocked back to the Xfinity Theatre to witness the a cappella group Pentatonix perform on August 26. The Grammy Award-winning group headlined their North American summer tour with opening acts Echosmith and British singer Calum Scott.

Another Grammy Award-winning group to visit Connecticut this year was rock band Evanescence, led by vocalist and pianist Amy Lee. Evanescence headlined a sensory experience tour with powerhouse violinist Lindsey Stirling that made a local stop at the Mohegan Sun Arena on July 25.

For the first time in 2018, Connecticut played host to Farm Aid, appropriately scheduled on the first day of Autumn. The September 22 show began with Willie Nelson joining Wisdom Indian Dancers for a Native American ceremony, followed by sets from a wide and popular variety of artists, including Willie’s sons J. Micah Nelson, who goes by Particle Kid, and big brother Lukas Nelson and his band Promise of the Real, which also backed Rock & Roll Hall-of-famer Niel Young much later in the show.

Highlights of the nearly 12-hour festival included Jamey Johnson, who turned in a subtle and smoldering set that included his heart-wrenching ballads “The Dollar” and “Can’t Cash My Checks.” Two time Grammy-winner Kacey Musgraves and her band, all outfitted in powder blue sequined suits, transitioned from classic country tones to a haunting take on Brooks & Dunn’s “Neon Moon” and the pop crossover closer “High Horse.”

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds offered an incendiary set that touched multiple points of the Matthews catalog, including “Don’t Drink the Water” and “#41.” Reynolds produced otherworldly guitar pyrotechnics as the set ended, eliciting screams of approval from his partner on “Grey Street,” before they closed with the abbreviated but crowd-pleasing “Ants Marching.”

The highpoint of John Mellencamp’s set was his solo rendition of “Jack and Diane,” during which he invited the audience to assist, and they reciprocated in kind, virtually shaking the steel beams of the Xfinity Theatre’s rafters. Farm Aid founding board member Neil Young’s followed, thrilling fans with a set that progressed into the crunchy “Powderfinger,” a delicately delivered “Heart Of Gold,” and an explosive “Ohio.”

Closing the show, Willie Nelson hit all the right buttons to keep virtually every fan in the house enthralled, from his opener “Whiskey River” and late partner Waylon Jennings’ “Good Hearted Woman” to sing-along favorites like “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” and “On the Road Again.”

Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen, and Bono closed out the US leg of U2's eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE Tour at Mohegan Sun on July 3. With music, staging, and visual effects that verged on overwhelming, the band took over the entire arena floor with a conventional main stage and a smaller, round stage at the opposite end.

In between, a two-level bridge masked by massive retractable projection screens permitted members to traverse the entire floor or perform up close to the ecstatic crowd.

Packaging two dozen songs in the two hour-plus set, fans got what they came to hear. Among the show’s musical highlights were the rousing “I Will Follow,” “Gloria,” the elevating “Beautiful Day,” the semi-autobiographical “Cedarwood Road,” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” during which Mullen donned a parade snare, strutting across the bridge and whipping the crowd into a frenzy with the familiar opening beats.

Jethro Tull’s founding member and primary songwriter Ian Anderson brought the band’s 50th Anniversary tour to the acoustically superior Toyota Oakdale Theatre September 12, trading lesser-known selections from Tull's massive catalog for some of the band’s more popular selections. While the nearly sold out audience for this weeknight show did get “Locomotive Breath,” “Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll, Too Young to Die,” “Aqualung,” and a too-short and unsatisfying sample of “Thick As A Brick,” hardcore fans also enjoyed a few obscure selections that were truly wonderful to witness in concert.

Among them were the show opening “My Sunday Feeling,” Love Story,” “A Song for Jeffrey,” and “Some Day the Sun Won’t Shine for You.” “A New Day Yesterday,” “Heavy Horses,” and “Songs From The Wood” were also deftly delivered, with Anderson sticking mostly to vocals and flute, only picking up guitar for a couple of numbers.

Smashing Pumpkins’ Shiny And Oh So Bright tour stop July 29 at Mohegan Sun Arena was most special, reuniting original band members Billy Corgan, James Iha, Jeff Schroeder, and Jimmy Chamberlin - and delivering a marathon three-hour-plus, 32-song showcase of (mostly) all musical things Corgan.

From covers of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” a piano-driven take on Led Zepplin’s “Stairway To Heaven,” and the band’s always sweet version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” to an earth shaking “Tonight, Tonight,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” “The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning,” “1979,” “Ava Adore,” and “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans,” Smashing Pumpkins delivered one of Connecticut's most memorable shows of the year.

In various configurations, from being backed by a full symphony orchestra to performing with her own incredible band or among contemporaries and mentees on various Lilith Fair turns, nothing compared to the prolific Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan's set on her brief solo tour opener at Port Chester, New York's revitalized Capital Theatre September 9.

McLachlan was in fantastic form, sticking mostly to piano and crushing numbers like the opening triad “Possession,” “I Will Remember You,” and “Adia,” switching to acoustic guitar for “Building a Mystery,” and later, “Song for My Father.” McLachlan continued to drive the audience into apoplectic ecstasy, pegging the needle repeatedly on “Fallen,” “World on Fire,” “Sweet Surrender,” the breathy “Loving You Is Easy,” and her always well-received ballad, “Angel.”