What a show! You can hear the energy on the soundboards, but man... the crowd was electric for this show. The only sold out day of the three night run and the crowd came to party. I got on the floor as doors opened and posted up about 40 feet back dead center. Lights, sound, and field of view perfect for this experience. LTW was a great, fun opener with some inspired playing. DB through Lead Up was just absolutely burning with intensity. Longest Meter Maid to date, Peter ripped on DB, and Hot Love is so much fun live. Whole crowd sang along and seeing Cotter better visually on the drum break was phenomenal. Lead Up is a personal favorite that I hadn't seen and it was performed extremely well. Feel It Now and Your Ocean were solid but I could tell they were building to something... Arrow closes out set one with a very cool version. This was the first full night with Dracul and you could tell Rick wanted to play his new guitar. The levels weren't quite up as much as I would've liked, but they got it dialed in soon enough.

Set two was an all-timer. I was bummed that they didn't jam Drive, but that was quickly forgotten. Hill>Engborg>Sinnerman was one of the best sequences I've seen any band perform. Hill and Dark Horse were the two songs I was chasing the most and I was fortunate enough to get both over the course of this run. Hill did not disappoint and was the perfect lead in to the first Engborg of this tour (IIRC). It was my first time seeing it and it kicked as much ass as I'd imagined it would live. Just an absolute instrumental monster which led straight into Sinnerman. Admittedly, I wasn't a huge fan of this cover in the past but the song placement and groove was perfect for this set/sequence. Just ripped the roof off with the funk rhythm section and some absolute blazing leads from Rick. ITM was solid but it doesn't stand out much from my memory. I was at Nashville 10/24, so that one may be blocking my recall haha. Hot Tea was an absolute barn burner to close and the best Tea I've seen live. EMG encore may have been my favorite jam of the night as they get evil with it and then flow right back into mixolydian infused bliss to close it out. Overall, this was without a doubt one of the best shows I've seen, regardless of band. The exchange of energy between crowd and band was like nothing else I've experienced. A perfect Saturday in Cincy after driving in from Nashville earlier in the day. Boy, was it worth it.