Buffalo-born jam quintet moe. has headlined Summer Camp Music Festival at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois every year since 2001. As such, moe.’s sets have become a highly anticipated Summer Camp tradition over the past 20 years.
With the beloved Midwestern festival — usually held Memorial Day Weekend — sidelined in 2020 and moved to August this year, here’s a look at five “Memoe.rable” Summer Camp collaborations over the years.
Allie Kral | 2013
On May 25, 2013, Illinois native and now Yonder Mountain String Band fiddle ace Allie Kral joined moe. for a rendition of their classic “Plane Crash.” Although the band debuted the Rob Derhak-penned tune in 1997 and have performed the song 474 times to date, as per Phantasy Tour, the 2013 Summer Camp version with Kral is like no other featuring a goosebump-inducing fiddle line from Allie.
The jam vets performances the following year on May 24 and 25 were memorable for a few reasons. One, the band took over from Umphrey’s McGee in a legendary, multi-day band swap that first saw moe. picking up UM’s “Ringo” and heading into their own “Tailspin.” Members of UM would reemerge at the end of the set to finish up “Ringo.”
The following day moe. delivered an afternoon acoustic set ahead of their electric set later in the evening, which saw Zac Brown joining them on The Band’s “The Weight.” The swapping shenanigans also continued, this time it a reverse of the evening before with Umphrey’s taking over for moe. during the the vintage, Al Schnier-composed moe. tune “Meat.” UM then performed their song “Puppet String” before moe. came back out to wrap up “Meat.”
Another notable “Meat” performance came the next year in 2015 when keyboardist Marco Benevento joined moe. Marco, who was at Summer Camp with Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, added some rollicking piano on the penultimate song of the set, a nearly 24-minute rendition of the aforementioned “Meat.”
moe.’s 2016 appearance featured another famed jam keyboardist, The String Cheese Incident’s Kyle Hollingsworth. Kyle joined in on a pair of choice covers, Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and Talking Heads’ “Making Flippy Floppy” as well as another moe. classic, “Opium.”
Another song by Talking Heads is the penultimate entry in JamBase’s “Memoe.rable” Summer Camp moments. On May 27, 2017 moe. welcomed members of Turkuaz for an encore performance of the stellar Talking Heads’ tune “Life During Wartime.”
Notable collabs have also taken place at SCamp when members of moe. sit-in with other bands as well. Watch moe. guitarist Al Schnier join Pigeons Playing Ping Pong at Summer Camp in 2018 on PPPP’s “Poseidon.”
