‘Patience is a virtue’ and ‘Good things come to those who wait’ are two sayings that don’t usually apply to popular music. Jam bands however, are the exception to the rule and prove those proverbs true by offering big rewards to listeners who invest their time and attention to songs longer than three or four minutes.

On Tuesday night at the Bridge Street Music Hall, moe. tested these truisms to the limit by playing only two songs in the space of almost an hour and a half during their second set. The 47-minute long ‘Recreational Chemistry’ that bled into a 40 minute long ‘Meat’ (whose only lyrics are ‘meat!’ shouted twice in the song) offered the audience both exhilarating peaks and mind-numbing valleys. That’s the nature of jamming, and for those who listened through minutes of boring repetition, they heard some of the most exciting music played this year in Syracuse as a reward.

The Syracuse show was a homecoming of sorts for moe., who started off playing in the bars of upstate and central New York in the early ‘90s. Although performing in Syracuse has become a yearly tradition for moe., playing the Landmark Theater once in each of the past three years, this is the first club show they played here in years. Using the fairly obvious pseudonym Monkeys On Ecstasy (or M.O.E.), moe. attempted to avoid the hordes that usually flock to the Landmark and attract just the die-hard fans, as several hundred of their fans showed up.

moe. treated those fans to a highly unusual night of music. In their first set of the evening, they played their new album Wormwood straight through in its entirety. Starting with the opening skitter drumbeat of ‘Not Coming Down’ and ending with the final chords of ‘Shoot First’, moe. replicated the album almost note for note. The transitions between songs were scripted perfectly and the solos were brief and purposeful. Although percussionist Jim Loughlin’s bell work in ‘Gone’ and Rob Derhak’s looping bass intro to ‘Kyle’s Song’ were highlights, the set’s climax came during the powerful version of ‘Bullet’ when Chuck Garvey’s searing guitar solo sent shock waves of electricity and excitement into the already hyped crowd.

Because the first set was uncharacteristically devoid of long jams, moe. balanced the jam/song equilibrium during the second set. The two 40-minute plus songs featured all five members of moe. prominently as soloists and also provided almost an hour’s worth of group improvisation. The songs wavered between mellow psychedelia and intense heavy rock and visited just about every style, feel and emotion in between. The set was altogether noisy, beautiful, boring and jaw-dropping. It was the reason people listen to jam music.

After a set of songs and a set of jams, moe. busted out an encore full of cover tunes. It began with the Band’s classic sing-a-long ‘The Weight,’ which featured all three of moe.’s singers trading verses and the crowd howling along in ecstasy. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘The Ballad of Curtis Lowe’ came next and served as a reminder of moe.’s roots as an upstate New York bar band. After the Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Godzilla’ finished over three hours of music, moe. finally said good night, leaving everyone in the building completely drenched with sweat and incredibly satisfied.

Mike Lang is a junior in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. E-mail him at [email protected].

Published on May 7, 2003 at 12:00 pm