Moe.down made its return to Turin this weekend after two years of being held in Mohawk. Our Andrew Sorensen spoke with the fans, who call themselves moe.rons, about how their family-like community made the reunion a special occasion.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

TURIN, N.Y. -- The annual summer trek to spend three days in Upstate New York to see 17 bands is a special journey for fans of moe., or moe.rons.

"It's like a reunion for us that we do every year," moe.ron Kim Risley said.

And this, the thirteenth year of the festival, is a special homecoming for the fans and the bands. Moe. moved the festival back to Turin this year, where it has been held ten times before.

"A couple of people mentioned it feels like coming home and it definitely does," moe. vocalist/guitarist Chuck Garvey said.

It's a combination of the scenery and the people.

"I would say like 80 percent of the people I know are here hanging out like its a big picnic or something," said Garvey.

"It's become very family oriented and a lot of these people have built their whole friendships around coming to these festivals," drummer Vinnie Amico said.

It's easy to see why. In the tent city just beyond the stages, it's common to just walk up and make friends, or more.

"The first time we met, I was like, 'Who is this girl?' And she thought she was pretty cool," moe.ron Soren Dahl explained about the day he met his wife.

Dahl and Kim Risley met thirteen years ago at moe.Down One.

"And then eleven years ago we became more than friends and we just got married three weeks ago," Risley said.

Moe. is so special to them, they even put a moe. quote on their wedding invitations.
But they aren't the first to travel down that road.

"Back the first couple moe.downs actually we had someone get engaged on stage one time," Amico said.

And they probably won't be the last. The festival has grown most years and they have brought out people from all 50 states, Canada and England, people like Crystal Sloane from California.

"I think it's amazing, the energy is incredible, the people are incredible, the sense of community, it's like people start shouting at the stages and it just rolls all the way back like a vocal wave. It's stellar," Sloane said.

Most of the moe.down family agreed that the return to Turin was indeed stellar, with fans dancing through sporadic rain storms two days in a row, just to get some moe.