I Asked You What You Wanted/ You Said You Wanted to be Alive

Who: moe.
When: October 12, 2006
Where: Town Ballroom/ Buffalo, NY
With: myself
Of Note: The October Surprise

moe. was playing two nights Town Ballroom in October 2006, Thursday & Friday the 12 & 13. This was my first fall after grad school and I was getting into the swing of "grown up" life. I was really excited that moe. was coming to town and bought tickets for both nights. Because I didn't know anyone that wanted to go, I just bought tickets for myself. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I'd done that - bought tickets to something just for me. I was apparently feeling all kinds of sassy and independent.

Anyway, as anyone who lived in Buffalo at the time knows, that afternoon it started snowing. I remember coming in from lunch and talking about it with my then new co-workers. Mark said, "There is no way this is going to stick; it's just a flurry."

When I got home, it was still snowing and definitely sticking. Some of the windows in my apartment were still open because it had been warm the day before. I shut everything up, changed into jeans, a sweater, and my trusty Nike hiking boots and headed down to Main Street. Even when I was driving down, I remember it being messy - and I was driving the indestructible turquoise tank of doom. The suddenness of the storm, and how quickly everything accumulated was just absolutely crazy. I parked in my usual place, the"secret" parking lot behind the old Kegworks office, and headed in.

Hilariously, because I didn't want to carry anything/bring a bag, I didn't have my ID with me; I didn't think anything of it. But, when I got there, I got "X"es on my hands because Town Ballroom has a bar. Because, clearly, I was under 21.

I only ran into one person I knew that night - this guy Nathan that I had gone to grad school and interned with. He was also flying solo so we hung out for a bit. I lost track of him when he went to the bar to get a drink...which I obviously couldn't do because I was "X"ed, which he thought was hilarious.

The set was out of this world. It felt like vintage, sing in my car in 2001 moe. and I loved every minute of it. From the opening 'Kyle's Song' to 'St. Augustine' AND 'Plane Crash' in the first set, to 'Akimbo' and 'Mexico' in the second. It was like the whole show was all the songs that I had listened to over and over again when I first got into the band, performed live, just for my enjoyment. It was incredible.

I also remember Rob cracking a whole lot of jokes at the audience's expense, most of which boiled down to. "You assholes. You live here in Buffalo. It's October. And it's SNOWING." Maybe because of the weather or because of the amazing set list, or just because Buffalo was glad to have its hometown boys back, the crowd was awesome that night. Everyone was really into the music and really friendly and you could almost feel the good vibes radiating throughout the place. The other positive to being alone was I could dance like a damn fool and have even less shame about it then I usually do.

The second song of the encore, 'TGORM', is another one of my all time favorites. The chorus asserts that, "The more things change the more they stay the same/ The more things stay the same, the more I go insane". I remember standing there, at the end of a truly awesome show, and wondering if things were always the same, would you actually go insane? I had a moment of existential crisis thinking about how being there, with "X"es on my hands, rocking out was something that could have happened in 2001 or 2003 or could still be happening in 2010 or 2015. I wondered if that would be such a bad thing. It's such a perfect refrain of music for a time when you're trying to figure out just how your life is different. Because I finished grad school, was I a "grown-up"? What does that even mean? Was I too old to be out at concerts on Thursdays? My family has always said that I was never a kid, but was I actually an adult? How was it that everything could change so much (holy crap! I have disposable income and a job now! I have fulfilled my "go do this with your life" manifesto I created for myself at 14!) but I could still do the same things? Was that a bad thing? What exactly was I doing with my life?

By the time the jam was over, and they kicked back into the chorus the last time, I let it go. I didn't need to figure out my life at that moment, so I didn't (spoiler alert: I haven't really figured it out yet; I figure there's still time). I just enjoyed the end of a great show by one of my favorite bands.

When they were done, Al said that he had looked outside before the encore and that it was a real mess out there. He implored us to take care of each other. As we all left the venue, I saw that Al was right; it really was a mess out there; there was at least a foot of snow on the ground and essentially no effort made to clean it up. I was so glad to have an enormous Jeep with four wheel drive and a really short drive home. The city looked so weird that night with the leaves and the snow and the quiet - and as I drove home, the only sound I could hear was branches cracking all around me. I drove over a couple of downed trees. I read later that there were people who left the show and tried to get back to Rochester or Syracuse and ended up stuck on the 90.

Friday morning was declared a state of emergency, with all non-essential travel banned. I wasn't upset about the travel ban, or the fact that I had no heat for a week, but I was pretty upset that the Friday night show was cancelled. I spent most of that week-end at the one place that was walk-able and had both heat and electricity: JP Bullfeathers.

Everyone has one - that's my October Storm story.