New Year's isn't only the year's biggest party, with throngs gathered in city centers around the globe. It's also a great reason for some of music's biggest names to put on a show that strives for the pomp and grandeur of the holiday itself.

Some of history's finest musical moments have happened in or around New Year's: Johnny Cash celebrated New Year's Day playing for the inmates at San Quentin prison in 1960. Bruce Springsteen had a firecracker thrown at him at his 1979 New Year's Eve show in Cleveland, Ohio, while Metallica played a 1991 "Godzilla Jam" at the Tokyo Dome in Japan to 50,000 fans. And who could forget--though we may all try to block the image from our minds--Pauly Shore in a cherub costume, being lowered from the ceiling at Nirvana's 1993 New Year's Eve countdown at the Oakland Coliseum.

As memorable as those moments may be, Billboard wracked its brains and record books to come up with the greatest New Year's Eve shows of all time--concert moments that put even the above to shame. Auld acquaintances may eventually be forgotten, but here's betting that the below nine shows never will.

-Charley Rogulewski