Saturday, moe. came to the Taft Theatre and showed why it leads today's jam-band pack.

        The five-man band played for almost three hours in two sets of music that roamed from semi-acoustic bluegrass to galloping Latin rhythms to a pogo-punk encore of the Ramones' “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

        The band — Cincinnatian Chuck Garvey on lead guitar/vocals, Al Schnier on guitar/keyboards/vocals, Rob Derhak on bass/vocals, Vinnie Amico on drums and Jim Loughlin on percussion/acoustic rhythm guitar — is most frequently compared with the Founding Fathers of Jam, the Grateful Dead, and the comparison is deserved.

        No other jam-band captures the Dead's down-home funkiness like moe., and they do it without succumbing to the all-encompassing world-weariness of Jerry Garcia and the boys.

        They also have the Dead's knack for the epic jam, displayed on “Rise” in the first set and “Bring You Down” in the second.

        But moe. has a far broader vision than just cloning the Dead. There were sunny, tropical rhythms in “Buster”; delicate folky guitar by Mr. Schnier and bluesy slide by Mr. Garvey that evolved into the country-rock shuffle of “Tambourine”; there were vertiginous stops and starts that recalled the avant-garde experiments of Frank Zappa; and there was a precision in the guitar interplay reminiscent of the Allman Brothers.

        It was an impressive array of sounds and, combined with a killer light show that emphasized the rhythms (particularly effective on the Ramones' warp-drive punk), it kept the band's faithful following up and dancing from start to finish.

        And while moe. lacks the subtle, ensemble magic of the Dead, it's a far more consistently in-tune band.

        Most importantly, in these days when Madonna is considered a serious artist, moe. knows the difference between music and “product.” For moe., and for its audience, a concert is a journey, not just a show. Saturday night, what a long, joyous trip it was.

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