A concert is always more than just a rendering of songs. It’s a musical revamp, a real-time test, a spectacle, a pop-up community, perhaps a dance party or an incipient riot — and, even in the YouTube era, an ephemeral, site-specific experience. Here the pop and jazz critics of The New York Times recall some of their favorite live events of 2012, in order of importance. JON PARELES

Jon Caramanica

JAY-Z Carnegie Hall, Feb. 6. In September, Jay-Z played the opening night of a new arena in Brooklyn in which he is a minority owner that is the home for a basketball team in which he is also a minority owner. And yet that show felt small compared to this one, on one of New York’s hallowed stages, in which Jay-Z collapsed his rise from corner boy to king of the city into two ambitious, cocksure and slightly awe-struck hours.

2NE1 Aug. 17, and BIGBANG Nov. 8, both at Prudential Center, Newark. This was the year K-pop arrived — not in the form of “Gangnam Style,” which was everywhere and yet completely evanescent — but in these arena shows, which were full of thousands of young, paying fans eager to see the girls of 2NE1 and the boys of BigBang, groups with zero American hits between them, but rabid American followings all the same.

DISCLOSURE Glasslands Gallery, Oct. 24. No night out was more buoyant than this one. Disclosure, the British brother duo, updated the electronic dance music known as 2-step garage on their terrific records, and onstage rebuilt it from scratch, adding sweetness and churn and flash.