Old and New School Rock Rosemont

Some friends and I took a little train ride out to the suburbs on Saturday night to catch the Allman Brothers Band and moe. rock the hell out of Rosemont, IL. The home of O’hare and numerous convention centers and not much else, Rosemont also has one very cool theater. I saw The Rockettes there when I was in high school. I figured the shows would be similar, right?

We ariived slightly into moe.’s set, and I was psyched to have plenty of time left to enjoy. We quickly found our seats in the balcony after walking by one gigantic chandelier in the lobby (it would have made for a great picture but I didn’t bring my camera). That’s about all I remembered from the first time I was there, so I was pleased to see that my memory hadn’t failed me.

For moe., I have a small love-hate relationship with their music so I’m not their hugest fan. I enjoy most (if not all) of their music, but they become very repetitive to me very fast. Their 35-minute Timmy Tuckers are just way too commonplace, and I believe it’s been like that since the early 90’s when they began. I need variety. Change. Progression. Movement. Shifts. Direction. Anything other than the same. I think they just have a slower build-up style which tends to make me relaxed more than anything else.

With all that being said, the moe. set was great. Some of the new stuff that I hadn’t heard before was really good, especially the newer Chuck tune (he doesn’t step up nearly enough, maybe for less obvious reasons than we all know). And, I was psyched to see my first Timmy Tucker live. Really, I was. It wasn’t 35 minutes, either.

See, I went to Summercamp. But, not really for moe. but more for the other bands there and the small festival atmosphere; I think I might change my tune next year. The set-closing TT was built up and torn down very well (without 35 minutes of dual-guitar noodling in between), so I was left to contend with the longest line I’ve ever experienced at a show with some good moe. sounds flowing through my brain.

Honestly, I left and ran down to get in line shortly after the show break had began; I figured I had at least a half hour to get to the bathroom and the bottled water line. Well, I ended up missing the first ten minutes of Allman Brothers Band, too. Stupid Rosemont Theater and their disallowance of drinks inside the venue. This only encouraged everyone to double-fist their beers and turn around and get right back in line.

My joke of the evening was this simple.

“Dude, they’re going to play Ramblin’ Man next…”

So, it was probably only funny to me. But, a simple pun of how little I know ABB tunes was totally in order, and I used it about five times. Good stuff.

On to ABB, I don’t know how much detail to go into here. They were amazing despite the fact that Warren Haynes was not there. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one that didn’t know that Warren would not be attending the first week of the ABB tour. I overheard a couple others throughout the night expressing their own disappointment. The music was exactly what I wanted to hear; the slow and low slide blues and the frantic percussion-driven groove rock with deep, Southern vocals right over the top. The set featured many solid transitions, and the overall flow of the show (including the 1:30 hour opening set from moe.) was very smooth. The Drums segment of the show was pretty great, too. Two drummers and one percussionist would have a hard time screwing up this part of the show, so I was glad to see that they did not disappoint.

They never played Ramblin’ Man, but I did not need my stupid joke to be fulfilled to be fully satisfied with the show. I’m planning on reacquainting myself with moe. and I look forward to downloading some ABB to get more acquainted in the first place. Definitely check them out on this tour (and wait to see if Warren will be there) if you can. You won’t regret it.