moe.

Allow me to indulge in a brief public service announcement about what I regard to be the greatest open secret on the web. The Live Music Archive has been around for years, but nobody outside of the (ahem) jamband sphere seems to acknowledge its existence. It comprises an insanely comprehensive number of free concert downloads, the majority of which is admittedly micro-jambands of minimal interest. But there’s also near-commercial quality recordings from the likes of Spoon (49 shows), Animal Collective (18 shows), Mission of Burma, and a jaw-dropping Dirtbombs New Years gig from 2006 with covers of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and the Black Lips’ “O Katrina!”, which is interesting considering the Lips’ record containing same was nine months away from proper release.

moe. has 1,813 archive shows available for download. Most of these are uploaded by savvy tapers who do so within twelve hours of a concert’s completion. This is a boon for music critics who no longer have to rely on pad and paper to recall aspects of gigs, but can also seem ridiculously obsessive to anyone not already on the jamband wavelength. Then again, this is the same band that hosts their own Caribbean Cruise featuring all of the expected tropical amenities and extra long moe. sets.

Musical acts of the jamming ilk don’t get much ink here on CMG, primarily on the assumption that our readership doesn’t pay them much attention, but also because yours truly is the only staffer who still sort of listens to them. Upstate New York stalwarts moe. (yeah, lowercase and with the period) are in many ways the quintessential 21st century jamband; making a living playing fifteen minute songs with titles like “Blue Jeans Pizza” to a Caucasian ocean of twenty-somethings. But they’ve managed to elevate themselves to the higher (chuckle) echelons of the genre via a relentless work ethic easily comprising over 100+ shows a year, songwriting better than it needs to be, and a curiously unique sound.

The majority of the lesser acts that moe. gets lumped in with sound like competent bar bands with guitarists who probably supplement their income by teaching kids the pentatonic scale when they aren’t onstage. In contrast, moe. generally sound like the Allman Brothers playing ’80s speed metal with Stanley Clarke on bass. As is required of their genre, their bottomless bag of covers ranges from the obvious (the Allmans, the Band, J.J. Cale), the cred-building (Radiohead, MC5, Ween), and huh? (Tori Amos). But what they really need to do is break out “Master of Puppets” as soon as fucking possible because it would be awesome.

Trouble is, unlike another upper-rung jamband that shall remain nameless, moe. have essentially sounded this way for the entirety of their now twenty (!) years, minimally evolving their sound and still largely relying on songs from their earliest albums. The latter might explain why yours truly was an obsessive in his college years, then sort of lost track of the band throughout most of the ’00s (save a 2006 Central Park gig where they covered “Paranoid Android,” ostensibly in tribute to the Radiohead show across town, thus reminding the audience that they were missing out on Radiohead show across town). Still, no guitarist living or dead has quite managed to wrangle the twisted combination of wah pedal and flange that stage left guitarist Al Schnier does—his sound a veritable locust storm of day-glo rubber bands to counter Chuck Garvey’s equally impressive, but more traditional Eddie Van Halen-isms.

When it all gels, the result is stuff like show opener “Timmy Tucker,” a monstrous wah-riff rocker driven by dime-stop tempo changes and Rob Derhak’s endlessly popping bass line; he being arguably the slap-happiest bass player to emerge from the ’90s not named Les Claypool. This evening’s version of the song makes for a pretty awesome accompaniment to twenty-minutes on a treadmill, shifting from the verses, to round robin displays of Yngwie Malmsteen-shredding, to a vibraphone accented ska groove before slamming into a different funk-metal song about a bear shitting in the woods. Really. At their least inspired, moe. fall prey to indulgent “one dude chords while the other dude obliviously solos” territory, but on this evening, such moments were in fortunately short supply.

In addition to being a benefit for charity World Hunger Year, the concert also served as the kick off to the band’s 20th Anniversary, which gave them an excuse to work that time-honored jamband tradition of loading as many guest musicians onto one stage as possible. Banjoist Danny Barnes and mandolin player Jeff Austin (the latter from Colorado hippies Yonder Mountain String Band), were both welcome additions, adding a punk bluegrass feel to the loose-limbed funk of “Nebraska” and further supplementing the already manic hoedown portion of “Waiting For the Punchline.” Even better was the frequent use of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks and Brooklyn based keyboard jock Marco Benevento, both of whom when coupled with moe.‘s two guitar/two drum/one bass line-up, resulted in a formation exactly resembling that of Trucks’ parent band. Never ones to waste such an opportunity, moe. responded with spot-on covers of “Whipping Post” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” both of which arguably showed more fight than recent versions by the Allmans themselves. Loopy moe. standard “Happy Hour Hero” even featured saxophone courtesy of David Sanborn, the uber-smooth jazz man also responsible for the sexy bleating on Ween classic “Your Party.”

As often happens with most rock concerts featuring an improvised light show and thirteen minute songs, I found myself checking my watch late into the second set (two sets being standard). But in contrast to a Disco Biscuits or Widespread Panic show, never dozed off standing up or had a desire to leave early. Twenty years together as a band with virtually (i.e. a few drummers) no line-up changes is an impressive feat, and moe. deserve our respect for sticking to their jamband guns as long as they have. I’m hoping at this point they’ve got the Radiohead thing out of their system, but so long as you don’t cringe at the idea of endless guitar solos as a high wire juggling act, moe. are still more than capable of putting on a hell of a rock show.