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Summer's Here and the Living Is Easy

by Tony Oliveira

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By the time you all are reading this, I suppose the summer musical festival season will be approaching the home stretch, which is as good a time as any to reflect back on the Gathering of the Vibes, and a few, related tangents. The GOTV has always held a special place in my heart, because it really was the first of these multi-faceted musical events that I had the pleasure to attend, back on Memorial Day Weekend in '96. It was actually called "Deadhead Heaven" that year. Back then, there just weren't that many music fests; now, thankfully that's a much different story. One could conceivably catch one on almost every weekend of the summer, if you know where to look. This is both a credit to our emerging music scene, the fans, and the promoter's that stage these events. I suppose I could go on some lengthy, nostalgic journey and relive the past GOTV and tell you all how much it has changed/grown, etc.- it has, but I won't bother taxing my short-term memory or boring you all with the details. Let's face it, these weekend festivals are usually filled with too much good music for any one person to take it all in.

I know some of you may consider that blasphemous, but to me, it's like sensory overload, so you have to pick and choose what you'll take in and inevitably, what you will miss. Instead of reliving this year's Gathering, I'd like to focus on something I've always found interesting and an outlook that has been somewhat altered by a combination of things - no not drugs! It seems the recent trend has been for many of our favorite bands to spend their summers playing festivals or other multi-act shows like this year's "Summer Sessions" (moe., SCI, Galactic and Gov't Mule) or last year's "Hoodoo Bash". This can be both a positive, and a negative, depending on how you look at it. It's cool because you can catch a bunch of great bands, all in one day or weekend, for a relatively cheap price. It's also a great way for many of these bands to get the exposure that they deserve, since they play usually play too much larger audiences than they are accustomed to. The downside is that the bands are forced to play truncated sets due to the time constraints of playing with several bands.

I've heard quite a few people complain about their favorite band(s) playing festivals because they are accustomed to seeing them play 3+ hours, where they can get warmed-up and really stretch things out. This is a legitimate gripe and I sympathize with these "hard-core" fans, because I used to actually felt this way myself; that is until last year. Last year, I had the pleasure of seeing 4 "Hoodoo Bash" (moe., SCI, and Strangefolk) shows, and I enjoyed them immensely. I also had a chat session with one, Ken "Skippi" Richman, the road manager for moe. in which I "complained" about the shorter sets and how I really wish moe. would have done their own tour. Well, old Skippi set me straight. He told me that summer is basically a time for these bands to relax, hang with other musicians and also their opportunity to watch and maybe even learn something from their fellow musicians. At first, I thought "sure Skip, sure, whatever you say", but by the end of my 3 show run, I'd had a change of heart and understood exactly what he was talking about. So what's all this have to with this year's GOTV? Well, I purposely neglected to mention one of my favorite "positive" aspects of festivals/multi-band line-ups, guest musicians! I'll admit that sometimes they can get in the way, but at the above mentioned "Hoodoo Bash" shows, there was all kinds of mixing and matching, with my favorite being Kyle (SCI's keyboard player) sitting in with moe. Coincidentally, those shows were among the best I've ever seen from them. Flash forward to this year's GOTV, where you had Gordon Stone sitting in on the lap steel (with Max Creek or was it the Radiators?), Max Creek playing with the Merle Saunders Trio, and my favorite, Nate from Percy Hill and DJ Logic sitting in with moe. I'm sure there were others, but these were just a few of the highlights. I was so impressed by the latter that the majority of this little article mainly deals with this most "interesting" collaboration.

The moe. set. I chose the word interesting because that's exactly what it was. For those of you who don't know, moe. is mainly a two-guitar attack rock-jamband. That's changed slightly with the addition or rather, the re-addition of Jim Laughlin (formerly of moe. and Yolk) on percussion, flute and washboard among other things. The change has been pretty subtle, but in my opinion a welcome addition. Now I've seen a keyboard player sit in with them on a few occasions, but never would I have imagined DJ Logic sitting in with this screeching guitar, thundering bass type band. I should add that I've seen DJ Logic sit in with MMW a few times and also with Medeski and several other musicians in some free-form type jam sessions (Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA) Those collaborations didn't seem like much of a stretch for me, but this one- hell yeah! Here's the setlist (courtesy of our very Jesse Jarnow):

Note: The entire set, minus "Blue Eyed Son" and "Rebubula" was with Nate Wilson of Percy Hill on keyboards)

Setlist:Moth*->Meat*, Spine of a Dog*, Blue Eyed Son (Chuck on acoustic), Plane Crash, Bring it Back Home#->drumz->Moth Reprise
Encore: Rebubula%
*w/DJ Logic on turntables
#w/ "Jessica" tease
% "supposedly" for Marc Brownstein of the Disco Biscuits J

Moth->Meat was downright awesome. Moth started of pretty much the same as always, but during the quieter parts of the tune, you could definitely hear Nate laying down some nice keys work. Seems like it took DJ Logic a little while to warm up. After all, he's probably had very little exposure to moe. or possibly none at all. The fact that he was able to pick it up so quickly is a credit to his skills as a DJ/musician. At about the 5 min. mark of "Moth" that all changes. This is when the tune slows down into Rob's slow bass lines and some meandering type guitar work. Both Nate and DJ Logic shine during this part. DJ Logic mixes in some real cool effects, kind of like the "shooting" effect in the old Atari video classics- Space Invaders. Actually, he uses quite a few different "video game" type effects- very cool. This goes on for a while with the song building and then during the next break down, DJ Logic and Chuck start trading licks using the "call and response" kind of interplay that so many bands like to use. The tracks he was laying down were of the more typical "scratch" variety. This eventually leads into some way cool stuff. The band would play a funky/rap beat and come to a stop, and then DJ Logic would throw in some beats. by far the most interesting "Moth" I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. All this is quickly followed by some chaos that emerges as Meat! Even though "Meat" is probably moe.'s most open song with regard to song structure, it seemed like it was very hard for both Nate and DJ Logic to be heard in the mix. This was mainly due to the driving type jamming that was going on, and does in most all "Meat's". They were definitely adding to the song, but could only be heard during the quieter parts and when there were brief breakdowns or meandering jamming. The rest of the show was quite good also, but doesn't really warrant the kind of review that the monstrous 40 minute Moth->Meat deserves- some of the best moe. I've heard in some time. I do find it refreshing to see them taking chances in front of such a big crowd. This collaboration was wonderful, but there is always the chance for failure when straying from the tried and true, but in my opinion, the potential reward more than warrants trying. A big thanks to Nate and DJ Logic for their sense of adventure as well.

Wrap-up. Hats off to Ken Hayes and the rest of the Terrapin Crew/Volunteers for one of the most organized events (of this size) that I've ever attended. Seems like it this event is getting bigger and better every year and I look forward to continuing my streak of never having missed one- next year. The weather was beautiful, the site was very nice and all the little amenities that make the difference between just OK, and fantastic were provided for everyone to enjoy. I'm talking about working and CLEAN sani-cans, buses from the parking lot, no over-bearing security or police and just an all around atmosphere that is not always easy to come by.

See you all next year.