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Gnarls Barkley (2 1/2 stars)—September 21, Red Rock Casino Resort

Take a good-bordering-on-great CD—say, Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere; a snazzy-bordering-on-chic venue—say, the pool at the luxe Red Rock Casino Resort; and palpable energy from a ripped-from-the-census mix of fans waiting to see said performers, and what do you get? One underwhelming concert.

For all the genre-changing hype surrounding Gnarls—the odd pairing of singer-rapper Cee-Lo and production maestro Danger Mouse, he of the Jay-Z/Beatles mash-up The Grey Album—Thursday's affair was really all about one song: "Crazy."

When the intro beat to the song cued, the relatively staid crowd awoke. Arms went up, heads nodded and lips moved to the lyrics—to the lyrics of the chorus, that is, because few people seemed to know the lyrics of the song. Or the lyrics of any other Gnarls song, for that matter. Which meant that much of Cee-Lo's introductory banter to each tune went over people's heads. Which meant that there was plenty of time for side conversations, restroom breaks and bar runs. Which meant that an anticipated concert failed to live up to its billing.

Maybe expectations were too high; neither performer has a lengthy track record as an exciting live act. Maybe the hype surrounding the music inflated what you'd expect to see in person. You know, something genre-changing.

It's not that the show wasn't good. Cee-Lo was engaging, energetic and funny. He covered out-of-genre tunes from the likes of The Doors, professed his affection for weed, cracked jokes and danced a jig, his generous belly challenging the elasticity of a too-small tank top.

And Mouse was his nerdily reclusive self, jamming behind the keyboards most of the night, rarely looking up between songs. The two-stepping, tambourine-wielding backup singers were fun to watch and The G Strings, a bikini-clad section of violinists, sounded as good as they looked, doing a surprisingly good job of capturing Mouse's studio-generated, electrified funk.

The typical end-early-so-fans-beg-for-an-encore ploy didn't work very well. When Cee-Lo and Mouse left, the crowd clapped and beelined to the exit. When they returned, the applause was more polite than adulatory, and Gnarls played a few more entertaining songs that few people knew the words to.

THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE (4 stars)— September 20, Beauty Bar

A crazy thing happened as The Brian Jonestown Massacre wound down its back-alley Beauty Bar performance after 2 a.m. last Thursday morning. Some jackass climbed onstage and began sticking his cell-phone camera into the musicians' faces, then put a hand on Anton Newcombe's back as the frontman worked through a monstrous feedback jam at the end of closing number "Swallowtail." An enraged Newcombe snatched the cell phone, cocked back his arm and prepared to launch the contraption at a nearby wall when—here's the crazy part, folks—he paused, called on security to deal with the offending party and handed the joker back his phone.

The stunning show of restraint flew in the face of every act-on-impulse episode on Newcombe's overflowing concert resumé, behavior that has become as much a calling card of Brian Jonestown's live shows as its wicked brand of retro, faux-British garage rock. Can it be that Newcombe, who turns 40 next year, has actually matured? Might he have reigned in his erratic conduct post-Dig!, the award-winning band documentary he so strongly disavows? Or just maybe, has he finally discovered that the controlled mayhem of his music can also be applied to his temperament?

Even when BJM's pleasant psychedelic pop turns chaotic—as "Hide and Seek" did during its roaring five-minute conclusion early in the set—melodies remain quite detectable, lobbing listeners a lifeline even as four- and five-guitar pileups bombard their ears with droning noise. Similarly, every time Newcombe himself appeared ready to dive over the hostility cliff, he stepped back, eschewing destructive shenanigans for mellow pleasantries ("If my high school yearbook looked like you guys, I'd have bought one") and well-wishes to teens perched atop his equipment U-Haul just outside the perimeter of the 21-and-over venue.

Newcombe does need to reign in his excess banter—long, momentum-sapping doses of which prevented the two-hour, 15-minute marathon from achieving total-classic status—but after years of well-documented lineup tinkering, he has assembled a live band worthy of his music, namely assertive drummer Daniel Allaire and recently returned noise-guitar maestro Ricky Maymi. And while it may be tempting to point out that BJM needs new material, it would seem a shame not to hear oldies like "Let Me Stand Next to Your Flower," "Vacuum Boots" and "That Girl Suicide" each and every time out.

Muse (4 1/2 stars)— September 21, The Joint

They took the stage on time, got to business and delivered a performance whose high energy level would come down only once—as if to pause for breath—just before the final song. By the end it was obvious that there, inside a Vegas venue most conducive to a memorable rock concert, and standing before a galactic light show, the three members of Muse, in red, white and black button-down shirts and all with very bad hair, had had the high aspiration of shooting for the stars that Thursday night.

And they hit. Muse immediately stirred the crowd with "Take a Bow" and "Assassin," from their new album. Then came invigorating favorites from prior albums, like "New Born" and "Bliss," interlinked by short, engaging jam sessions, and a rendition of their current radio hit in Europe, "Starlight," that caused goose-pimples. A general physical good feeling spread over the next 10 minutes, the English band streaming layers of electronic harmony upon a solid rock 'n' roll foundation.

And then they returned everyone to earth for two minutes to play "Soldier's Poem," a song with the tone, pace and melody of Elvis' "Can't Help Falling in Love." Provided all of that, I would have considered the Muse concert excellent, an upper-tier performance, four stars in the same way a professor assigns an A-minus; but then, at the finale, I was rendered awestruck. Muse played their current radio number in America, "Knights of Cydonia," and without a tremble in my hand I can write that its performance possessed the magic capable of defining not only that particular night but also an entire era in one's life. It was loud, it was lucid, it was like the '60s with the wall-to-wall crowd pumping its fists in the air, singing along to "No one's gonna take me alive/The time has come to make things right/You and I must fight for our rights/You and I must fight to survive," and it was as if for moment I had been transported to another universe.

Massive Attack (3 stars)— September 23, The Joint

"It's like dark, electronic music," a drunken man in matching black slacks, shirt and blazer said to his girlfriend while trying hard not to drop his drink.

True, the music was dark and the faux-goth mood darker, but that didn't keep the eclectic crowd from dancing to songs like "Inertia Creeps" and "Angel," from Massive Attack's electronic masterpiece, Mezzanine. Still, this atmosphere seemed unnecessarily oppressive, and in some cases downright depressing, as an LCD screen onstage flashed phrases and stories from the media illustrating the horrors of war and murder.

This bleakness seemed to rub off on lead singer Robert Del Naja and such guest vocalists as Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins and reggae singer Horace Andy. At times, they seemed uncomfortable, even stiff. Fraser would not open up her eyes or even look at the crowd while giving a gut-wrenching performance of "Black Milk."

The vocalists may have struggled, but you can always count on iron guitar riffs and improvised freak-outs, backed by dueling drummers and co-founder Grant Marshall on synthesizers. While the show didn't live up to the expectations you bring to a Massive Attack concert, there were a few moments—intense, savage versions of "Angel" and the normally mellow epic "Protection"—that made you glad you were there.