Shades of Skynyrd, pheelings of Phish, an air of Aerosmith and strands of Steely Dan marked the two and a half hour jamfest put on by moe. at Stephens Auditorium Saturday night.

moe. started a half an hour late and took another half an hour as a midshow break, but the audience didn’t seem bothered by it.

An undulating ectoplasm of humanity writhed the entire evening, though the most furious gyrations seemed to come from the back of the audience, where there was more space.

One concertgoer, Mike Giannangelo, senior in management information systems, explained during the break that he had been to a general admission moe. show in Lawrence, Kan.

He said that the front area was much more “packed.” He added that the show felt a little more intense, but that he didn’t think moe. was playing poorly at Stephens.

Giannangelo also explained that in Lawrence, there were more “clouds of haze.” There didn’t seem to be much of this at Stephens, however. Only an occasional cloud of what Snoop Dogg would call “sticky-icky-icky” would waft down from what CNN might call “an undisclosed location.”

Showgoers’ noses weren’t the only body parts that detected something a bit funky.

A somewhat harsh lighting show attacked the eyes. Actually, the lights at times delved in to the realm of epileptic seizure-inducing harshness. Luckily, though, nobody could be seen being carried away frothing at the mouth. To its credit, though, the lighting generally did jibe with the music and ebbed and flowed with the tide of sound.

The only other fault that could be perceived was relatively minor and excusable. For a musical style that thrives in the open air of the outdoors, sound engineering in a giant concrete cave poses a challenge to technicians.

In addition, the bass junkie sound techs had the low end cranked to tooth-rattling levels, which tended to drown out vocals when in full jam mode. Lyrics became mostly unintelligible behind the throbbing bass and drums.

But a good jam band doesn’t stop. A good jam band doesn’t have just one player who can rip a sweet solo. A good jam band is moe.

After the break, the band came out for a second set, which consisted of seven songs metamorphosed to create one extended supersong that lasted upwards of 45 minutes. All five players were fully immersed in playing, each taking solos.

From Tito Puente-esque timbale solos to the occasional Trey Anastasio-like guitar solo, each moe. member got his fair share of feature time. Solo begat solo, building, slowing, and building again to a near cacophony of sound. Then, somewhere around minute 37, moe. dropped into a laid-back samba feel.

A familiar bassline entered. An even more familiar guitar riff followed. Though wordless, the melody was unmistakably Steely Dan’s “Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number.”

It lasted only a minute, and the band moved on to something that sonically resembled The Doors’ “Riders On The Storm,” and then back to pure moe.

Needless to say, nothing in this concert was short and sweet.

Nothing was sweeter, though, than the group’s encore rocker fueled by Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion,” complete with Peter Frampton’s “talkbox” sound a la Joe Perry.

After a full set of verses, choruses and solos, moe. transitioned into the end of “Moth,” which kicked off the supersong second set.

The fans rejoiced.