The eighth annual installment of moe.down returned to Snow Ridge Ski Area in Turin, NY over Labor Day weekend. As with past years, the event offered guest appearances, hostile takeovers and a surprise or three.
This years festival was marked by two full-band segues during moe.s sets. On Saturday, the Meat Puppets, who had performed earlier in the day, swapped it out with moe. during Big World, early in the groups second late night set. Then on Sunday evening, once again during set two, moe. was supplanted by another collection of players. This time, however, it was the bands crew, as during the jam out of St. Augustine the quintet gave way to Jefferson Waful (lighting designer) on guitar and vocals, Frank Robbins (guitar tech) on guitar, Hector Jimenez (drum tech) on bass Steve Young (front Of house engineer) on keyboards, Cass Libbers (monitor engineer) on drums and Ken ‘Skip’ Richmond (tour manager) on percussion. The moe.crew then took on Neil Young’s ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.’
Waful, our former Jambands.com news editor, explains, ‘This is an idea that’s been floating around for a year or two and it had never worked out. When we’re on the road, there is sometimes downtime during the day and it’s not uncommon for various crew members to start jamming on stage while waiting for problem to be fixed or a light to be focused. We didn’t actually know we were definitely going to do a song until about two hours before the show and that only left a half hour or so to decide on a song and then rehearse. I was hellbent on doing a tune that was short and not overstaying our welcome. We practiced about twice and then told the band we would launch right into a funky jam after the second chorus and they were to promptly come replace us. Of course, as soon as I turned around to hand Chuck his guitar, he shook his head and left me out there for a while. It was really a nice gesture on the band’s part to salute us and a creative way for them to take a beer and bathroom break. We had a blast up there, but we’ve all talked and decided to keep our day jobs.’
As if Waful, Skip and the Puppets werent enough isnt enough, the band also brought out quite a few others over the course of the weekend. During moe. first evening set on Saturday, Perry Farrell stepped up to lend his vocals to Ocean Size (which appears on Janes Addictions Nothings Shocking release). Earlier that day, the Meat Puppets Curt Kirkwood lent his guitar to Mexico. The next evening, moe.‘s first set closed out with a take on The Weight that also featured the members of Uncle Earl along with the Zach Djanikian (The Brakes).
Meanwhile, other collaborations took place around the site as Peter Prince & Moon Boot Lover welcomed several friends to the stage during their two sets in the beer tent on Sunday evening. In addition to percussionist Yahuba Garcia (Ryan Montbleau Band, Nate Wilson Group), who joined the band throughout its performance, early in the the first set, Peter Prince welcomed the Lynch siblings, Shannon and Terry on saxophone and trumpet during ‘Friends.’ The Lynchs returned several songs later along with moes Jim Loughlin for a version of ‘Ali.’ Then, early in the band’s second set, Ryan Montbleau contributed vocals (in part through a megaphone) to ‘Crying Won’t Help.