Back at the Creek

Deer Creek remains one of my favorite venues for many reasons. Vending-friendly, nearby campgrounds, and great venue staff are some of the things that make it just a little more special. This year I was lucky enough to have an EZ-Up with me and get parking close to shakedown on both nights. This makes vending and relaxing a lot easier. Extremely high temperatures made the shade a welcome addition. My wife and I were using this run as a celebration of 10 years of marriage, plus she had recently had a birthday. We were looking forward to a great set of shows. We arrived early on both Thursday and Friday, so we knew we'd be spending a good amount of time in the sun. Sunscreen and water was a must.

On Thursday, the heat was the worst. We were so early that we had to drive from gate to gate and wait to see which one opened first. We tried to park out of the way with a line of other cars peacefully waiting for the gates to open, but were asked to leave by the Sheriff. We even talked to some Live Nation staff who confirmed what we had heard about the lots opening earlier in the day, but they would not open the gates any earlier. We got in just after 3pm.  Shakedown seemed to take a while to get busy. We met a lot of folks, but missed a few connections, too. I ran into Art from theheadythreads@hotmail.com vending some designs I made for him, and offering up some apple moonshine. After some meet-ups and some beverages, we headed inside.

There were a lot of highlights throughout what many I heard call a 'safe' first set. The Cars, Trucks, & Buses and Wolfman's were very strong versions, and the TTE was set at a nice blistering pace to end the first set. Second set brought a lot of transitions including a great spacey Drowned Jam, an amazing Jibboo>Gin transition that brought big cheers from the crowd, and a rare Buffalo Bill. That night also saw my favorite Melt since the return, unfinished and segueing into Dog Faced Boy. As if saving the best for last, Trey brought out the megaphone for a Fee>NO2>Kung>Fire encore.

Friday saw a slight break in the heat and some overcast skies. Again, we arrived early and got the same prime spot at the top of Shakedown. The lots filled up fast, and everything seemed to come to us. I was pretty busy with the shirts at this point, so I never got a chance to leave the site. We had some great folks around us, including the guys with the Animal Muppet. I hope Animal found his extra. It was great meeting everyone on Friday that came out including the folks from Reality-Tour.com,  OhKeePa.com, the family from Seattle, and my friends from Twitter. I wish I could mention everyone by name...but you know how that goes.


 Friday's first set had a number of worthy mentions including the return of Walls of the Cave, my first Curtis Loew, and a strong Possum>Wilson set closer. The second set Maze is one of my favorite versions. If you have not listened to it yet, Page is out of control. I was also blown away by the Meatstick>Mango transition. I never saw Mango coming, and it flowed perfectly into the Fluffhead>Julius.

Even though we weren't heading to Alpine Valley, I appreciated the well played Contact>Slave encore as a nod to traffic heading out in all the various directions from whence it came. Our fate in traffic was not the best, as we were involved in a crash on the way out of the venue that night.. We are all ok, but it will make for a memorable Creek run.

Watch the blog for more videos from Deer Creek.