the wire — the call before each show (RSS) ↗
· The moe. Edition · Wednesday, August 12, 2026 · an almanac, printed as they play
Think you can out-call the robots? Tap the songs you bet moe. plays tonight, 🔒 lock your surest one, 🎲 dare a deep cut for bonus — then watch the morning-after grade. No signup: you get a ticket stub to check tomorrow.
Tonight’s picks are in — the wall’s up. Results post the morning after the show. Got a stub? Check it below.
No show on the board right now. When the next one’s announced, this is where you call it before the robots do.
Got a ticket stub? Check your night.
Every lab’s whole hand, face-up before the show — posted early and held. The only thing that moves before the lock: songs the band just played drop off once last night’s show grades. Then it seals exactly as shown.
FILED FRI JUL 31 · PROVISIONAL UNTIL 5:00 PM ET WED
† a lone call — no other lab took it. Most songs called the morning after wins the night.
⚿ On the list — the call lands before each show. No spam, ever.
Not a season or all-time average — early club sets and today’s long-jam two-sets aren’t the same animal, so an all-years number would lie. We take the last 12 shows of the same type (a real two-set night vs a festival / one-set), count the songs in each, and average — rounded to the nearest song. As-of only: it never counts a show that hasn’t happened yet, so it’s the same number we could have posted that morning.
the 12 two-set shows it averaged (songs each, newest first)
Average 14.0 → ~14. The count is a call too — the Reckoning sets what we called next to what they actually played. Song counts only here — never a setlist (those live at setlist.fm).
the board leans · 2/3Rebubula32 ThingsTimmy TuckerHeadBusterWind It Up
| song | gpt | local | opus | called |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rebubula | 2/3 | |||
| 32 Things | 2/3 | |||
| Timmy Tucker | 2/3 | |||
| Head | 2/3 | |||
| Buster | 2/3 | |||
| Wind It Up | 2/3 | |||
| Blue Jeans Pizza | 2/3 | |||
| Mar De Ma | 2/3 |
26 lone calls not shown here — marked † on the cards.
You against the machines. Every fan who plays seals a call before doors and rides the same ledger as the bots — base hit +1, a landed 🔒 Lock +3, a cold 🎲 Bold deep cut +5. Claim your stub to put a name on a card; beat the House line and you’ve out-called the robots.
Claimed names only (anonymous picks still check their own stub). The House and The Crowd (every fan’s picks pooled) ride along as benchmark cards — finish a season above the House line and you’ve beaten the robots. Points post the morning after each show.
2026-07-31 — how the panel called it against what they played. Most songs called wins the night — honest as the morning.
The take — The Labs, a remarkably consistent trio of house, local, and opus, secured a well-deserved tie, demonstrating a frustratingly similar ability to decipher moe.’s unpredictable whims, while the crowd and gpt offered a predictably underwhelming display.
See every lab’s full call from this night — the back issue →
The labs, one ledger. Each seals its call before doors; the morning after, every pick is scored. Whoever calls the most of the setlist wins the night, and most nights won leads the race — average hit-rate settles ties. The standings never forget. Each name is a seat, not a fixed model — the brain behind it can change at any time (the current one rides on every card); models are interchangeable.
| Guesser | W | Hit | Shows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | localqwen2.5:7b-instruct-q4_0 · local | 2 | 11% | 2 |
| 2. | opusclaude-opus-4-5 · cloud | 2 | 11% | 2 |
| 3. | gptgpt-5.1 · cloud | 1 | 8% | 2 |
| 4. | housem2 · statistical | 1 | 7% | 2 |
| 5. | crowdplayers · consensus | 0 | 8% | 1 |
| 6. | player:MOE-3SN3 in the race · cloud | 0 | — | 0 |
How a night is won: whoever calls the most of the songs actually played that night wins it — the eye test, plain and simple. W is nights won; Hit is the share of a lab’s picks that landed. A tied night is shared — every lab that calls the most takes the win; hit-rate only orders the standings.
Most nights won leads; hit-rate breaks ties. Public pick-’em and your own bot are coming — soon you’ll seal a call before doors and ride the same ledger as the machines.
Our call for how tonight bookends — the most likely OPENER, ENCORE, and set-CLOSER, weighed by who’s hot AND who tends to fill the role. A separate bet from the setlist; graded Saturday against what actually played.
Yellow Tigers · Plane Crash · Captain America
Wind It Up · Immigrant Song · Take the Money and Run
Rebubula · Buster · Plane Crash
Presence × role-rate, computed as-of tonight — no peeking at the result. The opener & encore call is graded after the show.
Repertoire regulars the band is overdue to dust off — ranked by how many of their OWN typical gaps they’ve blown past, not by raw time cold. Six shows cold means nothing for a rarity and a lot for a song they usually play every three. Smart money, not a long shot.
| song | cold | usual gap | overdue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Akimbo | 301 | 3.6 | 10.0× |
| Y.O.Y. | 98 | 8.1 | 10.0× |
| Bring It Back Home | 317 | 6.9 | 10.0× |
| Blue Eyed Son | 325 | 11.8 | 10.0× |
| lylelovit. | 435 | 15.3 | 10.0× |
| That Country Tune | 348 | 25.4 | 10.0× |
Cadence counted from setlist.fm — the “overdue” multiple is shows-cold ÷ the song’s usual interval. Almanac fun, not a wager.
The deep freeze — real regulars that haven’t surfaced in ages. A morning line just for fun (no money, just glory); the longer the wait, the longer the odds. If one of these drops, the room comes unglued.
Nobody’s reaching for the deep freeze tonight — the labs are playing the hits. The long shots below are still lurking.
| song | cold | last seen | the line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guitar | 1835 | 2000-04-15 | 499-1 |
| Livin' Again | 1473 | 2003-12-04 | 499-1 |
| Sweet Emotion | 1314 | 2005-10-16 | 499-1 |
| Roll | 1034 | 2009-05-29 | 499-1 |
| Brain Tuba | 781 | 2012-10-27 | 499-1 |
| Good Trip | 748 | 2013-03-07 | 499-1 |
| Sticks and Stones | 714 | 2013-09-29 | 499-1 |
| Backwoods | 702 | 2013-12-31 | 499-1 |
Counted from setlist.fm, never reprinted — the line is a bit of almanac fun, not a wager.
The long view, kept the old way — what’s overdue, what’s hot, and where a song tends to land in the night. Counted from setlist.fm, not reprinted from it.
| Buster | 7 |
| Happy Hour Hero | 7 |
| Wind It Up | 7 |
| Yellow Tigers | 7 |
| Giants | 7 |
tends to start the nightDrums · Defrost · The Ghost of Ralph's Mom
tends to send you homeRebubula · Recreational Chemistry · Plane Crash
Trends are our compilation of setlist.fm event facts — we link out, never reprint a setlist. browse the source at setlist.fm →
We don’t ask the labs to be clever — every lab in the race gets the identical question. Same rules, same evidence, same format; the only thing that changes is the model answering. That’s what makes the race fair — and why we can show you exactly what we ask.
We show the shape, not the data dump — the setlists themselves live at setlist.fm (we link, never reprint). The candidate pool and recent setlists are filled fresh from our KB for each show.
Every reckoned night, newest first — tap a night for the full reckoning: what each lab called against what actually played. The record never scrolls away.
You’ve seen tonight’s calls — get the morning line in your inbox. We write when the robot grades itself (the hits, the blown calls) and when a new band joins the almanac. Nothing else, ever.
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