9/18/14 moe. @ CEFCU Stage - Peoria, IL

On Thursday I drove down to Peoria.  I left around 5:30.  The weather was gorgeous with temps in the afternoon reaching the mid 70s.  My friend Doc got me a ticket to this show for my birthday which was generous of him.  This venue is one of the easiest to reach from my house.  Its convenient and hassle free and I've always had good times on the shores of the Illinois River beneath the I-74 bridge.  Trust me its more scenic than it sounds.  The opening act Brainchild played too long in my opinion.  I've met Roy and I realize they're a local act but moe. had a strict 11:30 curfew so perhaps they should have had a more truncated opening set.  Before the show they were playing Little Feat and ABB on the PA.  Rob was sporting a NE Patriots lid.  They didn't have much in the way of speakers and frankly it could have been louder.  Also, the house lights seemingly were on the whole show.  I had the Decatur crew to my right and the lone tapers Randy and Kris to my left. 


Timmy Tucker was a great choice to open and this was a solid version.  However, the rest of the first stanza featured too much new material from No Guts, No Glory.  I'm not a big fan of Punchline so the set somewhat fizzled for me.  The Cpt USA > WLT segue was well executed.  I thought they were going into Opium briefly during the transition.  Pretty standard first set.




Yodelittle was a monster version on this night.  They jammed this song so long that they essentially ran out of time to finish the set they'd had planned.  I thought there were hints of Moth but it became Time Ed.  Also, it should be noted a crazy hippie kid tried climbing the scaffolding.  It took security and the cops a while to get down there to apprehend the culprit.  The band watched as he spun around like a moron from one of the four support posts.  This was a huge Time Ed that had an extended Drums breakdown.  This segued into head. which is one of my favorite moe. songs.  By this point the temperature had dropped into the 50s and it had become quite windy.  When they stopped at the end of the third song I was pretty surprised.  It had been over an hour but I felt they could have played another song or two in the set.  It was only like ten after 11.  The encore was rather weak.  The final song being a nod to the curfew.  This show will be remembered as being unique for its three song second set.  However, aside from the Tucker opener and the transitions between Yod > Time Ed > head. this show was nothing spectacular.  With that said I had a fun experience and was glad I attended.