This was my first "Deer Creek" show and even though I missed out on some legendary history, I was still blown away by the venue and the surrounding scene. Add that it was Mike's birthday and the excitement level was very high! I was not disappointed!

Mike's bass playing was on display out of the gate with a crowd pleasing Theme before launching into Boogie On with a nice Happy Birthday guitar vamp during the intro.

A couple songs later I finally got my 2nd Esther. Took 15 years to get my first one, then 12 more for the second so I was stoked!

Buried Alive, a perfectly placed Alaska, my first jammed out Mull (is it still Mull?), Birds and a somewhat sloppy Cavern ended the first set.

Set two started with a decent No Men, the inevitable DWD, a touching Joy into Ruby Waves and a tremendous Lizards! Fluffhead brought the house down and then a high energy Chalkdust.

With another birthday nod to Mike, Contact was the encore followed by a high energy First Tube to propel us into the rest of the weekend!

Blown away. So glad I finally made the effort to make it out to Indy. Ready for night 2!

The band played with more end-to-end energy than any show I’ve attended. Everything’s Right and DWD are highlights. Listen to Mike’s playing. It’s active and creative, and a few times he takes and leads jams into new territories, even holding his ground in a transition when Trey wasn’t immediately following. Trey’s jamming was fantastic, but he really loosened up (sonically and even physically) during First Tube.

This was my first show of 2022, and happy to be back to the Ruoff/Deer Creek (I prefer the latter). One thing I've since learned about Deer Creek is it is a world-renowned outdoor amphitheater. And, at least according to Wikipedia, is also consistently one of the world's top-grossing concert venues despite having a standard 25,000 capacity (compared to, say the Glen Helen which more than doubles its seating capacity). All of this to say that I am certainly not as well versed in other musical venues as others on this site, but I've never been anywhere else that was of such ease of access for tens of thousands of spinning hippies, and with campsite directly across the street taboot.

We drove into the venue from Cleveland the day of, only stopping once in Springfield, OH for a pee break/coffee refresher. As soon as we landed in town, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and hurried to the show. Got in around 7, got tee-shirts and beer at 7:30, found a spot Mike-side on the lawn at 8, and the electricity was certainly palpable. I had a feeling a birthday show, and us being Mike-side, was going to lead to something special. But I was not expecting what I got!

This is probably the least jammed show of tour (that still contains a 16-minute Disease and 17-minute ER), and I won't lie and say I was disappointed slightly not getting my 20+ behemoth jam like the Simple from the night prior. But instead what I got was an incredibly tight and well-executed 2 sets of music. I also got my first Fluffhead, so who am I to complain? And don't even get me started on that Ruby Waves. 13 shows in (yeah yeah, rookie numbers, I know), and that is the biggest peak in a jam I've ever witnessed. They all went into that one with a mission.

Listening back on this show, I definitely appreciate it more in retrospect. This feels like the most handcrafted show of tour, and it's surprising the best was yet to come for us in Indiana.

In not so many words: excellent start to the run.

Highlights: ER, Mull, Disease, Ruby Waves>...CDT.

This one is HOT.

I went into this run looking to get my first Lizards and Fluffhead... little did I know I'd get them both on the first night, back-to-back.

Happy birthday, Mike! Great playing and a great way to start the run. Solid first set... Everything's right jammed, lots of us got our first Esther, Alaska was super fun. The birthday boy did Mull and there was some jamming, love to see it. 3 or 4 star set, good warmup for the weekend.

2nd set was great, tons of jamming in No men's, disease, ruby waves, and FLUFFHEAD! Loved the placement of Joy, Lizards, Chalkdust. Will relisten to this set.

Love the contact, nice little jam and 20,000-person singalong. Was hoping they'd do a multi song encore and got first tube to close it out. Thank you band, staff and phans for a real good time

I'm biased having been there, but thought the energy flow throughout the entire first night in particular of the three ahows, the song placements, jam segments, segues FLOW all were exceptionally high. The jam out of Mull went otherworldly in a quick heartbeat after Trey launched the > part taboot. Subtle yet discernable Let it Grow quote out of the BOAF jam too.