moe. @ Hiro Ballroom, January 23
Words: Scott Bernstein
Images: Rob Chapman
Over 20 years after forming on the campus of the University of Buffalo, jam stalwarts moe. are still cutting their own path through the notoriously finicky music industry. The band that bucked industry trends by releasing a 45-minute single in 1996 as their debut single on a major label, threw their own festival before it became the norm and has kept the same lineup for 13 years, just put out their tenth studio album, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LALAs, and celebrated with a typically unorthodox album release party featuring two sets and acrobats at the intimate Hiro Ballroom in New York City on Monday.
[All photos by Rob Chapman]
For Monday’s “show,” moe. treated fans to two sets – a 45-minute acoustic performance and a much longer electric set. The acoustic set was the entertainment for VIPs who plunked down $100 that also entitled them to an open bar, event poster, meet and greet and sushi. Perhaps 150 of the band’s most devoted (and well-heeled) fans gathered around the quintet who opened with the LALAs track Smoke, which like many songs in moe.’s repertoire would fit nicely on ’70s rock radio.
While most of the songs on LALAs were debuted in recent years, there are two exceptions: The Bones of Lazarus (debuted as Lazarus in 2001) and One Way Traffic (unplayed until this show), so it was fitting those two tunes were performed in tandem towards the beginning of the acoustic set. The acoustic version of Lazarus was similar to the album cut and lacked the length of previous electric takes, while the catchy One Way Traffic found Rob Derhak putting down his bass to focus on singing. One Way Traffic, a tune Derhak wrote with Nashville songwriter Steven Dale Jones, appears to be the one LALAs track that departs from the band’s signature sound, as it’s straight, sugary pop. A female acrobat emerged during Lazarus and twirled around a huge hoop set up right above the stage, adding a bit of showmanship to the performance.
Jack Teagarden’s Shake Your Hips, a staple of moe. acoustic sets, fit the room and setting perfectly, before guitarist Chuck Garvey stepped to the mic for a solo version of Suck A Lemon. In a nod to the non-conformist way in which they’ve operated their career, moe. ended the acoustic set with a ten-minute romp through Meat – a dark and dirty jam tune which you wouldn’t expect to hear unplugged (though they have done it before). Meat gave the band their first chance to stretch out and featured impressive solos from Garvey, Derhak and Al Schnier. Following Meat the doors were open to GA ticket holders and the room filled up quickly.
In hiring an outside producer (John Travis) and working with an outside label (Sugar Hill Records) in putting out WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LALAs, you’d expect a sea change in the group’s sound. However over the course of the evening it was clear that moe.’s style has remained similar over the past decade or so and this was on display during the Downward Facing Dog > St. Augustine sequence that opened the electric set. They still deliver prog-tinged rock songs with slow, expansive, guitar-based jams that their fans love. By pairing songs from the new album with a classic moe. material from the band’s earliest days, they kept the crowd into a show that contained each and every tune from the new album by the time the night was through. More than their counterparts in the jam scene, moe. knows how to milk segues for all they’re worth as the first hints of St. Augustine came minutes before the song actually started. St. Augustine featured the best solo of the night, with Garvey ferociously torching the fretboard as he built up his slide solo to a hearty climax.
A four-some of LALAs tracks made up the bulk of the electric set with Puebla standing out as the best of the bunch. Two pretty female acrobats emerged at the beginning of Rainshine and performed all sorts of tricks on cocoon-like structures set up in the middle of the room. The ladies stayed out for all of Rainshine as well as the Paper Dragon that followed winning cheers from the crowd as they completed difficult spins and twirls. As mentioned, Puebla stole the show in terms of the “new” tunes and contained the most exploratory jam of the evening. Drummer Vinnie Amico slowed the pace towards the end and dropped into a beat reminiscent of the catalog staple Moth, so it wasn’t exactly a big surprise when Moth finally started. During a break between lines, Schnier took the opportunity to thank the fans for coming out and allowing the band to do what they do.
The sound at Hiro Ballroom was fantastic with one exception, you had to strain to hear the work of percussionist Jim Loughlin. Thankfully the mix was fixed when the band re-emerged for the encore and you could hear Loughlin’s malletkat clearly as he led the way through his own Chromatic Nightmare, the last LALAs tune remaining. For the finale, moe. went with fan favorite Rebubula and brought the acrobats back out for another turn on the cocoon-like structures. At 1:30AM, six hours after doors opened to VIPs, the night came to a close. If you’ve seen moe. in the past and enjoyed what you saw, odds are you’ll still enjoy what they are doing in the present. If you’re looking for something different, or a major evolution, you’ll probably be disappointed.
Setlist… (courtesy of Kahlil Katool)
moe. ~ 1/23/12 ~ Hiro Ballroom at The Maritime Hotel ~ NYC, NY
{9:36 PM > 10:22 PM EST}
I: Smoke, The Bones Of Lazarus, One Way Traffic#, Shake Your Hips@##, Suck A Lemon*, meat.
…
{11:22 PM > 12:52 AM EST}II: Downward Facing Dog > St. Augustine, Haze^, Rainshine, Paper Dragon, Puebla > Moth
Enc: Chromatic Nightmare > Rebubula
{What Happened To The LA LA’s CD Release Party
First Set was an acoustic set for VIP ticket holders
@ w/ al on mandolin
* w/ chuck solo (entire song)
^ w/ al on ’74 Gibson double-neck
# FTP > First Time Played (acoustic)
## LTP > 1/30/11}
Here’s a full gallery of Rob Chapman’s photos…
