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It was a subversive Valentine's Day love-fest for L.A.'s very own Sparks, playing a rare U.S. concert on Saturday at UCLA's Royce Hall. Why subversive? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt. Well, along with Morrissey and Stephin Merritt's The Magnetic Fields, Sparks is the band most likely to make you smile with their witty and biting songs about the mysteries of wooing and bedding the opposite sex.

Sparks, the Energizer Bunny of pop acts after 21 albums and 35+ years in the business, consists of brothers Ron and Russell Mael. Ron is the oddball, visionary composer and keyboardist with the John Waters-thin moustache, while Russell is the front man to rival Queen's Freddie Mercury in energy and falsetto power. They are also on a bit of a roll. Last year, the band played all 21 of their albums on 21 consecutive nights in an historic U.K. tour. Sparks devoted the entire first half of the Saturday show to the band's new album, Exotic Creatures of the Deep, which continues the form of Sparks' previous two CDs, Lil' Beethoven and Hello Young Lovers (rock with a very theatrical edge). More Sparks dish (and clips) after the jump...

Sparks has always been as much a conceptual art project as a rock band and the band's new songs translate really well to the concert stage with the inspired and ironic interplay between the Maels and the background video projections. Highlights from the new album, performed as a mini-suite, were "Let the Monkey Drive," an ode to a fellow love-lorn kindred spirit titled "Lighten Up, Morrissey," and the exquisite "Photoshop," with its refrain, "Photoshop me out of your life!"

After the intermission, the band played its landmark 1974 album Kimono My House in its entirety. As much as I loved hearing classics such as "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us" (see clip below), it was the new songs that ultimately impressed more. How many pop acts are still recording and performing new music that stands comparison with old hits? How many bands that were big in the '70s can still fill a theater with so many young hipster fans who weren't even born when Kimono was released?

Sparks' encore featured some of its best-loved songs -- "When Do I Get to Sing My Way" and the epic disco tune "The No. 1 Song in Heaven" -- and got the audience standing on its feet, giving the stuffy Royce Hall the feel of a giant club. You've gotta love a band that gets  an entire audience to sing along joyfully to the final chorus on the brilliant, satirical "Suburban Homeboy": "Props to my peeps and please keep your receipts!" Hey, Wes Anderson! Please jettison Mark Mothersbaugh and hire the Mael Bros. to score your next movie. PopWatchers, speak up if you're one of the few and the proud that love Sparks!

It was a little under a year ago that I went to a showcase at tiny L.A. club the Mint to see an up-and-coming country band called Lady Antebellum. Their first single, "Love Don't Live Here," was burning up the charts; the buzz was deafening. We all know how that turned out -- CMA and ACM awards, a Grammy nom for Best New Artist -- and so when I got word that another up-and-coming country band with a hot first single would be setting up under the Mint's low-hanging, record-speckled ceiling, I figured I should stop by.

Thus did I find myself surrounded by people in plaid shirts and varying degrees of intoxication last night as the Zac Brown Band played an hour and a half set that began with a man in the audience whooping, "We like our chicken fried, too, Zac! Welcome to Hollywood!" and ended with the hit in question and a deafening singalong of the line, "cold beer on a Friday night," even though it was Wednesday. This is a real backyard mutt of a band, somehow fusing reggae, hoedown, metal, and jam band vibes into one vaguely cohesive package, fronted by the burly, bearded Brown and his well-picked acoustic guitar. Their influences seem to make up the lion's share of their sound: I wrote "Charlie Daniels" down in my notes two songs before a lightning-fast cover of "Devil Went Down to Georgia," and spent a long time trying to isolate who Brown's clear tenor reminded me of (James Taylor?) until they segued through "Into the Mystic" and I heard all that Van Morrison.

And while big hit "Chicken Fried" is an ultra-American tailgate party (based solidly in the patriotic ethos of 2003, when it was written), themes elsewhere spanned the spectrum from downing PBRs and rolling a fat one (the Buffett-worthy Mexicali groove of "Toes") to the Serenity Prayer (new song "Let It Go"). The scent of early Dave Matthews was heavy throughout. In other words, there was something for everyone, especially if that someone attended a southern school. There was also enough gutsy musicianship to at one point cause esteemed LA Times music critic Ann Powers to involuntarily throw devil horns at the stage. For me, the highlight was "Free," a lazy Sunday morning ballad (where we got the snippet of Morrison) that Brown said reminded him of beaches in Australia.

Given the speed at which "Chicken Fried" hit No. 1 on the country charts, I'd say this band's future is its own to make. What do you think, PopWatchers? Do they have a shot at those 2009 Best New Artist awards? Check out the "Chicken Fried" video after the jump, and then weigh in below with your own picks for under-the-radar artists primed for a breakout in the new year.