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I Don't Want To Go Home Now/ I Just Want To Go Home Soon

Who: moe.
When: December 12, 13 & 14
Where: The Independent/ San Francisco, CA
With: hippies of the west cost, my new friends Rob & Jamie
Of Note: Oh moe. I love you most of all.

So, though my attempts to have a piece of Buffalo in SF by seeing the Goos did not go so well, when I heard moe. was playing three nights less than two miles from my house, I loaded up on tickets and got super pumped because, well, let's be honest. I love moe. more than pretty much anything.

So, here is a tale of three moe. shows.

Night One

Night One, Thursday night, was the day of my company's holiday party. After lunch at a brewery with the whole office, a dozen or so of us spent the afternoon at a couple of bars in the Mission. At 8:30, everyone decided it was time to go home. I decided it was time to head to the show. I stand by my assertion that Californians are pansies when it comes to late nights. Anyway, I arrived at the Independent to find it a pretty awesome venue - definitely on the smaller side than most of the places I've seen moe., but good ambiance and with the opportunity to get super close to the stage. (Which, squee!)

Anyway, I was feeling particularly gregarious that evening (possibly based on my previous nine hours of boozing, ahem), and chatted up some fellow concert-goers at the front. I bonded over west-coast rage with Rob & Jamie and thought, "Oh, look! Maybe I can make some friends!" Obviously, they were in town from Portland because I am not allowed to have friends San Francisco. But, it felt good to flex the "friend making" muscle and now I have fun, new internet friends! Props to them for being super cool to hang out with all three nights.

One thing that worried me about seeing a band I love so dearly in SF is that a lot of SF music crowds suck. Like, they stand there and don't move and don't sing along and definitely don't dance. And it always bothers me because I feel like most bands reflect back the energy that they get. I was super pleasantly surprised by the crowds at moe. Maybe it's because they're just too awesome to ignore, or the fact that they don't play the west coast as often (and so there were lots of people in from out of town), but the crowd was appropriately animated and enthusiastic so I did not have to cut anyone.

Okay, so the music from night one. The show started with 'Crab Eyes', which could have been bad because that's one of my least favorites, but it was a brief version, serving as the book-ends for a 'Crab Eyes'>'Threw It All Away'>'Funky Reuben'>'Crab Eyes' opening face rocking. From there, it was so much amazing, vintage moe.: 'Happy Hour Hero', which, as I've mentioned, I have a lot of personal history with, 'Plane Crash', which, shut up, I love that song so fricking much even if you're not supposed to, 'Mexico', 'Brent Black', 'Moth', which I have pretty much been singing since then.

The other musical highlight of the night was 'Bullet' if only because the repeated melody of the line "Would you recognize it/ Would you recogniiiiize" is possibly the ear-wormiest melody and I often find myself humming it and then can't remember what song it's from. Now I have it committed to the internet so I'll remember. Anyway, the whole thing felt exactly like a moe. show is supposed to feel: tight jams, Al making the face he makes when he plays solos, a haze of smoke in the air, the feeling that you're 19 or 22 or 26 and invincible and have the whole world in front of you, Rob Derhak being the best dude ever, and a group of people acutely tuned into one of the best bands in the game.

Then, for the encore, they busted out 'Together at Christmas' (Which, how much do I love that moe. put out a Christmas album? I think it's so hilariously random and amazing.) and I maybe got just a little bit of dust in my eye - the "storm coming from Ontario", "Buffalo", "4-wheel drive", "together at Christmas"... it's a song that so poignantly captures the experience of driving across New York State at Christmas with someone you're in love with. I was hit, at once, with feelings of "They're playing this?! That's awesome!", "I should look at plane tickets to BUF again," and "I kind of wish I was in love." Anyway, the dust quickly cleared out when they closed out with a rousing sing along of 'Up on Cripple Creek'. Night one, destroyed.

(One of my favorite concert pictures I've ever taken.)

Night Two

Having made my way back home at 2am from the previous night's show, I was a little nervous about making sure I would be up, around, and at my office for a 9am presentation to 130 or so of my closest marketing colleagues via telephone/webex. Luckly, there was no problem and I crushed my presentation. Corporate baller by day, concert junkie by night. It's a glamorous life.

Friday after work, I met a co-worker of a friend for happy hour, auditioned a bar to be my "regular" bar (which, WINNER!) and then headed to the show. Same comments apply about the crowd and vibe, so let's get to the music, shall we?

Night two started with 'OkayAlright', a song that I listened to for a solid month straight back in college (much to the dismay of my roommates) because I love it that much. (I later got to thinking that it's probably no coincidence that I love moe.'s 'OkayAlright' and the Sheepdogs' 'Alright Okay' almost equally. Apparently, I have an affinity for the lyrically complex. /Snark.) I remember that the first set had a slow build feel after the high energy opening song - some mellower tunes, including a super fun (and seasonal!) cover of 'Linus and Lucy'. The set ramped up to its closing 'Head' which was frantic and driving and almost a fever pitch. It was awesome. Second set stand-out was definitely 'Opium', which is usually hit or miss for me, but this one had more intensity than usual. Second song of the encore was 'New York City' which, again, I know, is not a super cool song to love but I adore it. I possibly jumped and shrieked a little... because who doesn't like their jam band fans to act a bit like they're at an N'Sync concert? Anyway, another stellar night.



Night Three

Saturday officially started when I got a notification on my phone that I'd been retweeted by Vinnie Amico. Definitely the highlight of my twitter existence so far.


Saturday's concert started at the venue when my new friends from Portland explained their theory of sticker-dispensing. Green for "you tried", red for "sarcasm & snark", silver for "almost there" and gold for "so fucking awesome". (I'm paraphrasing there, obviously.) I thought it was hilarious that they had actual sheets of stickers like elementary school teachers use. I started out with a red star immediately but got upgraded to gold by the end of the night. I consider it quite an accomplishment.

Following the seasonal theme of these shows, Saturday started with a bluegrass version of 'Jingle Bells', which I thought was hilarious. Fun fact: I'm pretty sure if you asked my best friend from college to name a moe. song, the only one she'd come up with is 'Nebraska' because it was one of my favorites when I first got into the band. I feel like I haven't heard it live in a really long time and they played it early in the first set, which made me super happy. On the whole, the third night was a bit more twangy than the first two, with 'Time Again' being a stand-out. The first set closed with '32 Things' which is one of those songs that you absolutely have to dance to, and fit the twangier theme. By the time they got to the last, "Everytime I think about Rob; think about Al; think about you," the place went absolutely batshit crazy and it was awesome.

Oddly, the second set included a cover of Rush's 'Tom Sawyer', which... was unexpected. My favorite of the second set was definitely 'Faker', which seemed much more haunting than usual. They closed the whole thing down with a truly glorious 'Rebubula', and being in the midst of that many people chanting "find my way back to you" was one of those live music moments - when all is right with the world.



I have so much emotional investment tied up in these five guys from Upstate New York; they're intrinsically linked to the time in my life when I was figuring myself out. I struggle a lot with the concept of "home"; in fact I have a whole Spotify playlist of songs containing the theme of "home" that nearly always make me cry. I subscribe to the notion that "home" isn't a place, but a person? a state of mind? a.. something? And, I've been struggling with where exactly my "home" is, and if I can make one on the west coast. Though I didn't necesarily answer any of those questions by attending this run of shows, I can definitively say that seeing moe. will pretty much always feel like "home".

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