One Moe High Ate Us

The Grateful Dead did it, of course. So did Phish and Widespread Panic. I think String Cheese did too. So I guess it was just their turn to follow suit.

In a message on their website, moe. announced their plans to take a break from touring after a massive summer tour. They plan to return to the stage sometime in 2009. Naturally, their fans are freaking out, prompting a post on their myspace page telling them to calm the fuck down.

The Dead took a year off from their rigorous road schedule in 1975, playing only a few shows during that year. They did it to get a handle on their ever-expanding universe of hangers-on, an extended family that was costing them no telling how many dollars. Of course they went on to play another 20 years after that. The break probably did them some good. They explored side projects that likely fed their imaginations and helped to expand the palette of styles they utilized so well.

Twenty years later, Phish took a break too. They'd slipped into the role vacated in 1995 by the Dead as the biggest concert attraction for what were now being called "jam bands." Thousands of traveling fans who had followed the Dead from city to city simply jumped on the Phish bandwagon, and the popularity of the band soared a bit more quickly than it probably would have otherwise. Suddenly, they were selling out huge arenas and amphitheaters. This too, brought with it some problems as their organization, which like the Dead's was comprised largely of friends who were expecting a paycheck, swelled. It got too big for them, out of their control, and by their own admission, began to include more and more nefarious characters. They played what should have been their swan song, their Shea Stadium, on New Years Eve 1999 for about 70,000 fans on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida, preforming more than six hours until sunrise. They could have called it quits then and their legacy would have been intact. But they didn't. They took a break, and for them it didn't seem to do much good. They came back from their break sloppy and uninspired. They held it together for a few more years, with the good shows being far less frequent than the trainwrecks.

Widespread Panic had the best reason for taking an extended break, but took it at the wrong time. They soldiered on playing shows in 2002 even as founding guitarist Michael Houser left mid-tour and soon succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Guitarist George McConnell filled in for more than a year of on the job training before they decided to take a long overdue break. When they came back, they struggled some more before McConnell left the band in 2006 amid a barrage of back-up guitarists being trotted out on stage and rumors of Jimmy Herring replacing him, which he did the following tour. If they had taken their break when Houser passed, they might have re-grouped better, though perhaps not at all.

Now, moe. is taking a break. It may seem like it's just part of the jam band formula, like playing two sets and an encore and allowing taping. But really, it's no big deal. Most bands tour every few years to support an album release. Only in the insular world of the jam band community does a few months or even a year off constitute a "hiatus" (or as Widespread Panic's bassist Dave Schools termed it, a "sabbatical.")

Jam fans seem to literally get addicted to the euphoria and obsessiveness of following their bands from show to show, so a break seems like cold turkey.

But there are plenty of other great bands out there to see. Maybe it'd do moe.rons some good to check it out, and maybe it'll do moe. some good to have some rest. As one of the hardest working bands on the scene, they certainly deserve it.