Music, Skiing, Shenanigans
While a repeat of the moe snoe.down Music Festival, first held
in March 2006 in Lake Placid, New York, lured us to the snowy hills of
Killington Ski Resort in Vermont to celebrate Ben’s Bachelor Party, the weekend
was more about skiing and late night comradely rather than music.
Nonetheless, most of us secured tickets for their Friday
and Saturday night shows at Spartan Arena, home of the Castleton State College
Ice Hockey Team, in Rutland, Vermont, a short drive from the slopes of
Killington. After a little back and forth on whether we would actually follow
through with attending at least the first night of the shows, a large group of
us drove from our condo on the slopes to the concert venue. It was quite a hike
to the festival, perhaps 35 minutes, something that no one really realized when
we originally planned the weekend.
The event itself was very community oriented with local
high schools selling water and food as part of a fundraiser. Fortunately, they
outsourced beers to organizations of age and our group made sure to down our
fair share. However, I volunteered for the role of designated driver, so I had
a bit of a different festival experience than a few of the others in our group.
It was fun if a bit strange to watch a show in a hockey rink. And not a large
NHL arena, but a smaller rink with the boards and glass still intact, a venue
which I imagine isn’t thawed for a concert too often.
We missed any opening acts and arrived as moe’s first set
was starting. We stayed through the set break into the second set, though not
till the end. I’m more of just a casual moe fan, but the show was good and the
long, meandering jams were enjoyable, even though I can never keep up with their massive catalog. A lot of others in our group knew even less. The show
wasn’t very crowded, which makes it easier to move around but makes it feel
like less of a party. At the very least, it was a good excuse to get out of the
house for the weekend.
Night 1 Setlist (March 22nd) at Spartan Arena,
Rutland, Vermont
Set 1:
Captain America
Recreational Chemistry
Bring It Back Home
Happy Hour Hero
Cissy Strut
Bullet
Kyle's Song
Set 2:
Billy Goat
Tailspin
Opium
Faker
Tubing the River Styx
The Pit
Wind It Up
Encore:
St. Augustine
The next day, moe played an additional set at the bottom
of the slopes on Bear Mountain. I skied by for a few songs.
Daytime Setlist (March 23rd) at Bear Mountain,
Killington, Vermont
Stranger than Fiction
Spaz Medicine
Blue Jeans Pizza
Waiting for the Punchline
Jazz Wank
Akimbo
Okayalright
Encore:
Spine of a Dog
We didn’t make it back down to Rutland the following
night for the second night of the festival. Overall, it was a fun weekend and
the festival added an extra incentive to make our weekend getaway happen on a
particular weekend in Vermont rather than some other random time and place.
However, what made the weekend fun was the skiing and the late night
shenanigans back at the condo, not so much the festival.
