moe. kicked off their run of shows in July in their home state with a concert Wednesday at the State Plaza in Albany, New York. This short-run once again has guitarist Suke Cerulo and keyboardist Nate Wilson subbing in for Chuck Garvey as he is still recuperating from his stroke.
While it was expected that there would be a good-sized crowd due to the beautiful weather, just hours before the show kicked off it was announced that Dead & Company had to cancel their evening at SPAC, just a 45-minute drive up the road, causing the plaza to have an even larger crowd than expected with many making lemonade out of lemons.
The two-set show started with “Blue Jean Pizza,” a fan favorite that got a lot of whoops and hollers from the crowd once bassist Rob Derhak began singing. Even though I’ve only seen moe. a handful of times, bringing in Suke and Nate to sub for Chuck opens up the band’s sound to new heights. The interplay between everyone with the addition of the keys is something to behold.
“The Road” came next and the band went deep with it before segueing perfectly into “head..” Many jam fans like to see how few songs a band can play in a set, and moe. almost always delivers on extended jams, closing out the set after five songs with the pairing of “So Long” and “Mexico.” The sun started to set during set break and it was great to see the crowd continue to swell in size as more folks got into town and off work for the show.
Set two kicked off with “Lazarus” as the band watched the sky begin to change colors over the horizon. Music never ceased during the set with all six songs segueing into one another, with plenty of fantastic jamming woven throughout. It felt as though the band had been going hard on the road even though they hadn’t played in almost a month. “McBain” and “Tubing The River Styx” followed.
What came next in “The Pit” was probably the highlight of the set. The song which started off calm and melodic soon turned into the hardest rocker of the night, at times sounding like Black Sabbath, and had the crowd headbanging and dancing all over the plaza. “Brent Black” closed out the set and included a drum solo for Vinnie Amico and Jim Loughlin that felt straight out of the ’70s with the rest of the band exiting the stage, letting the two go at it for a bit.
Before the encore started guitarist Al Schnier did his “al.nnouncements” rattling off some high show counts and fun messages before leading the crowd in a “Get well Chuck” chant that echoed throughout the State Plaza.
With the sun pretty much fully set, a small light show was given for “Bearsong” to close the evening out. The crowd gave everything they had left and danced as hard as they could as the band was dangerously close to the hard curfew on the plaza.
The brief tour continues this week with moe. stopping at both the Levitate and Great South Bay Music Festivals.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfuEp1wue13/
Setlist (via moe. FB)
Set One: Blue Jeans Pizza, The Road > head., So Long, Mexico
Set Two: Lazarus > McBain > Tubing The River Styx > The Pit > Brent Black
Encore: Bearsong
