By Paul Robicheau

The jam-band veterans mixed ’70s soundtrack classics with sprawling originals, movie-inspired costumes and a giant smoking bong at their Boston bash.

Al Schnier of moe. at the Wilbur on Halloween . Photo: Paul Robicheau

Jam-bands often follow a Halloween tradition of donning thematic costumes and performing special cover songs for the holiday. And 35 years down the road, moe. finds fun by specifically crossing offbeat movie themes into Halloween hi-jinks.

Past years found the Buffalo-born group molding countrywide Halloween shows around Star Wars, The Big Lebowski, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the films of Quentin Tarantino. This time around, Boston held honors with a two-night stand at the Wilbur, capped by a Saturday-night nod to the characters and songs from Dazed and Confused, the Richard Linklater movie about 1976 Texas teens celebrating the last day of school with stoner-tinged adventures.

A giant glass bong stood at center stage. The members of moe. walked out in ’70s-styled wigs, sporting a few prop details from the movie. Bassist Rob Derhak wore the same Ted Nugent T-shirt as Matthew McConaughey did in his first film role, while percussionist Jim Loughlin resembled another character in a scally cap and keyboardist Nate Wilson brandished a fanny paddle to fulfill another’s bullying task.

Rob Derhak of moe. at the Wilbur on Halloween. Photo: Paul Robicheau

About a third of the Wilbur audience joined in wearing costumes, though it wasn’t much of a stretch for some fans to pull off the ’70s hippie look. A few of the same Nugent T-shirts were even spotted in the crowd. At one point, guitarist Al Schnier gazed out and exclaimed, “Thank you for understanding the assignment!”

The band immediately kicked off the party with hometown favorite Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion,” Derhak anchoring its slinky weave while Loughlin choked a cymbal to simulate the song’s recurring whoosh effect. Then moe. flipped to its originals for a trifecta of “Not Coming Down” (Derhak throttling brisk bass over Vinnie Amico’s breakbeat-styled drums and Loughlin’s hyper bongos), the woozy instrumental “Wormwood” (laced with Chuck Garvey’s slide guitar) and the buoyant riff-rocker “Okayalright.” Derhak piped up on that song’s line about “smoking joints in the parking lot” and tweaked its chorus into the “Alright, alright, alright” catchphrase of McConaughey’s character.

But more than half the Halloween show showcased covers from the Dazed and Confused soundtrack, most of them played by moe. for the first time. The first set continued with Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” (featuring a rare, edgy lead vocal from Loughlin) and War’s “Low Rider,” Derhak adopting a deep-voiced conversational vibe over a laid-back groove. “Take a little trip,” he sang, “take a little trip with me.” Wilson’s flute was low in the mix there, but he triumphantly hoisted the fanny paddle during a robust organ break in “Bat Country” and graced Edgar Winter’s “Free Ride” with a falsetto vocal and Moog-synth sound effects, though the group never quite nailed that tune’s trickier rhythmic feel. That was soon forgotten when Schnier donned a double-neck guitar, teasing 12-string notes that morphed into the reliable first-set closer “Plane Crash,” where he swapped intense solos with Garvey while Derhak led the song’s apt refrain of “Too fuckin’ high!”

Chuck Garvey of moe. at the Wilbur on Halloween. Photo: Paul Robicheau

The hulking bong literally began to smoke as moe. launched its second set with Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and ZZ Top’s “Tush” before dropping another drug reference with the original nugget “Opium,” its ominous meandering going on a bit long, though lifted by Garvey’s slide work. Peter Frampton’s “Show Me the Way” proved lackluster (Garvey seemingly having trouble balancing his vocals with a balky talk-box tube for his guitar), but the Kiss anthem “Rock and Roll All Nite” made up for it, the crowd singing along and Derhak sticking out his tongue at the end.

The more recent moe. track “Silver Sun” lent a moody, Pink Floyd-ish touch, which was sandwiched around a lurching jam on Nugent’s “Stranglehold” before the Lynyrd Skynyrd ballad “Tuesday’s Gone” made an oddly placed, bittersweet turn. But again, a set-closing original provided the coup de grâce. Derhak climbed atop a riser to mimic huffing from the bong and then picked up his bass for the serpentine opening hits of “Recreational Chemistry.” That warhorse surged past the 15-minute mark behind a screaming, extended Schnier solo and a winding Derhak denouement, as spotlight towers panned beams through the stage fog.

Jim Loughlin of moe. at the Wilbur on Halloween. Photo: Paul Robicheau

Another moe. chestnut, “Moth,” brought communal vigor to the encore with its hearty chorus, “She knows nothing at all about life… she knows everything about living,” with the band teasing Steve Miller’s “Living in the U.S.A.” (another Dazed and Confused tune) along the way. By comparison, a tack-on of Foghat’s “Slow Ride” proved a sluggish finale, but the crowd loved it as another oldie from a golden age.

Coincidentally, the same night that moe. got dazed and confused at the Wilbur, Disco Biscuits improvised a score to Beetlejuice at the Worcester Palladium, with members wearing jailhouse stripes like Michael Keaton’s character in the film. Still, Boston hadn’t hosted a major jam-band Halloween since Umphrey’s McGee played House of Blues in 2014, and it’s been longer since Phish played a Halloween show on the East Coast. Thankfully, moe. reveled in the assignment.

Paul Robicheau served more than 20 years as contributing editor for music at the Improper Bostonian, in addition to writing and photography for The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He was also the founding arts editor of Boston Metro.