Courtesy Ruoff Music Center
TODAY, Noblesville’s 35-year-old outdoor concert pavilion is officially named Ruoff Music Center. But return with us now to the 1980s, when “naming rights” wasn’t a thing, and some Hoosiers thought a state-of-the-art outdoor concert venue just might be the work of the devil.
The Background
The original Deer Creek was the brainchild of Sunshine Promotions founders David Lucas and Steve Sybesma, who for years booked shows in Indiana and surrounding states. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, their larger Indy gigs typically took place in Market Square Arena and at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. However, purpose-built outdoor pavilions were starting to catch on nationally, and Lucas and Sybesma decided they wanted one for the Indianapolis area
Unfortunately for them, not everyone felt equally enthusiastic about their plans. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Sunshine tried positioning the project in Westfield, Pike Township, and even at White River State Park, to no avail. The reasons for the refusals varied from logistical issues (only one semi’s worth of equipment at a time could have been offloaded at White River State Park) to all the classic NIMBY worries—which could be summed up in a statement by a Union Bible College representative who, as Lucas told The Indianapolis Star in 1998, solemnly informed the Westfield Plan Commission, “If you allow this amphitheater to be built in your community, your daughters will be dancing in the street with the devil.”
The $12 million project finally found a home on 220 acres of Hamilton County farmland. But even though this spot outside Noblesville stood in the precise, geographic center of nowhere, the idea that it could pose some sort of cultural, moral (or, at the very least, acoustic) threat to the locals persisted.
The First Season
On May 20, 1989, gospel singer and Indiana native Sandi Patty took the stage as Deer Creek’s first headliner, kicking off an inaugural concert season that redefined the word “eclectic.” Patty was followed the next night by heavy metal hair band Cinderella. Over the course of the summer, Bob Hope, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Willie Nelson, Metallica, Frank Sinatra, Kenny G, Bob Dylan, Gallagher, and MC Hammer, among a great many others, took the stage.
The Noise
Cinderella’s metal show offered a chance to determine just how loud Deer Creek concerts could be. This was of more than academic concern, because local ordinances stated that concerts couldn’t be louder than 75 decibels a half mile from the venue’s property line. Cinderella was famously loud, so Sunshine Promotions talent buyer/production manager Steve Gerardi asked the band’s sound guy to crank up its audio system to 130 decibels (the equivalent of a jet taking off) while he stood on the Deer Creek property line and measured the mayhem with a sound meter. Even at this relatively close range, the needle didn’t reach 75 decibels. “I knew right then we would never get a noise penalty,” said Gerardi.
Unfortunately, noise penalties were just one of the strictures imposed on Deer Creek by local authorities. Shows on Mondays through Thursdays had to wrap at 10:30, and weekend shows at 11 p.m.-ish. And who better to break that curfew than Guns N’ Roses. On the first night of a two-night stint, the band took the stage nearly 90 minutes late and played almost an hour past curfew. The next night, they overplayed by a further 25 minutes, earning them a $5,000 fine.
The Booze
It’s no surprise that folks attending Deer Creek shows liked to relax and unwind, often with the assistance of alcoholic beverages or other mood-altering compounds. Given this fact, it’s also no surprise that in the early days, the venue suffered from a nagging problem: fans pre-partying in their cars, then marching into the show blissfully unaware that they’d left their engines running. Another issue was that beer signs in the concession area were visible from the stage, posing problems for acts like Aerosmith and the Grateful Dead, which had members who had gone through rehab and didn’t want to stare at booze logos while they played. As a result, right before their concerts began, any alcohol-related signage within line of sight of the stage was covered.
The Celebrity Moments
In 1993, Julia Roberts and musician Lyle Lovett, who was playing at Deer Creek, held their wedding reception on the grounds before Lovett’s show that evening. The staff had about 36 hours to pull the soiree together. Also that year, Foreigner performed before a near-capacity audience. They released a DVD of the footage, Foreigner: Live at Deer Creek, in 2003. In 2005, the power went out while Tom Petty performed his song “Refugee.” Unruffled, the crowd continued singing the lyrics until the power came back on, at which point Petty simply picked up where his fans were. And in 2012, CBS news anchor Katie Couric sang backup as one of perennial Deer Creek fixture Jimmy Buffett’s “Reeferettes.”
The Weather
To make sure their acts and audiences didn’t get caught in dangerous storms, Deer Creek maintained a closely guarded, top secret hotline to the National Weather Service office at Indianapolis International Airport. Not surprisingly, the weather crew could get gratis tickets to pretty much any show they wanted to see. When word got out that several of the meteorologists were fans of Chicago (the band, not the city), they were invited to have dinner with the group the next time they played.
The Dead
The Grateful Dead loved to play Deer Creek, and its management loved to host them. And why not? The musicians were super mellow, and they always sold out. Their fans were a totally different deal, however. When the Dead played their first show at the venue in 1989, a handful of Deadheads got their wires crossed, winding up in the tiny town of Deer Creek in Carroll County, about 45 minutes to the north. Sunshine Promotions, recognizing the town’s patience with the sudden appearance of misguided fans, handed out tickets to an upcoming Anne Murray concert to its bemused residents.
Things ended less amicably on July 2, 1995, when gate-crashers overran a Grateful Dead show and forced a cancellation of the next night’s concert. The band was so angry that it issued an official letter admonishing its followers in language that was far more Dad-like than Dead-like. “If you don’t have a ticket, don’t come,” it read. “This is real. This is first a music concert, not a free-for-all party.”
The End
The Deer Creek name was retired in 2001. SFX Broadcasting purchased Sunshine in 1997 and was consumed by Clear Channel Communications in 2000. Clear Channel (which eventually morphed into Live Nation) expanded the facility’s lawn seating, then sold naming rights to Verizon Wireless. In 2001, Verizon Wireless Music Center debuted, to be followed in 2011 by Klipsch Music Center, Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center in 2017, and today’s Ruoff Music Center in 2019. When Fort Wayne–based Ruoff announced online that they would be shortening the name, the amphitheater’s social media spaces were flooded with comments from people stating that, to them, it would always be Deer Creek. May it ever be so.
