9/5/09 moe.down, Turin, NY

The trek out to moe.down in upstate New York started out with kind of a stress. Two nights before the show as we were loading up our gear, we find that our van's "Check Engine" light was on once again (see posting from the 8/12/09 show for the previous hellish encounter with this pesky light). Not wanting to drive 1,500 miles round trip with a potential serious problem, we took the van into the shop the next morning. A day's work turned into a day-and-half's work, and Friday's departure time got pushed back a good four hours.

The van was in good shape though, and we hauled ass out to New York, arriving at our hotel well after 3am. We would have to depart the next day by 9:30am to make the rest of the drive and arrive at the festival in time for our noon set, so we were less than happy campers about the lack of sleep, but glad to have made the drive without incident.

Saturday's weather was gorgeous, and festival grounds were set in the mountains, with a chill vibe all around. The "second stage" that we were playing on was actually not too shabby, and was of decent size with killer sound. We were all a little groggy though: While setting up, I thought my amp was broken, but it turned out just not to be plugged in; Mattias and Jordan both had mid-show brain farts with Mattias counting off the wrong song, and Jordan blowing the chords in another; and Adam openly admitted to momentarily falling asleep during the set.

But despite the lack of sleep, we played 2 great sets to a surprisingly big crowd for that early in the afternoon, and received tons of great feedback as we hung out at the festival the rest of the day. Even though we were far from home, it was nice to hear folks calling out song requests during the set and meeting fans afterwards who had seen us at Summer Camp or on our past tours through the Northeast.

The festival also had awesome hospitality, with great a great vegetarian spread, and extras like fresh squeezed orange juice and a secret freezer full of fudgesicles. I was once again the driver at the end of the night, so the rest of the band was obligated to get super drunk, especially Adam, who was in rare form.

Thanks to moe. for an awesome festival, and we hope to be back in future years!