The band was peaking. Gibb Droll was playing like Jerry Garcia. Bassist J.V. Collier was sounding much like Phil Lesh. Bruce Hornsby was sounding like himself. And if concertgoers closed their eyes, they could’ve easily imagined 2018 was 1991 and “Funhouse” was “Tennessee Jed.”

But this wasn’t the Grateful Dead and this wasn’t the sprawling field that was Buckeye Lake Music Center. This was Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers playing a free, Friday-night (Aug. 24) show on the sprawling lawn that is the Columbus Commons. And “Funhouse” found Hornsby and his band channeling the pianist’s former band and their taking-the-music-for-a-walk ethos.

That’s how it went for two hours and 10 minutes as the Noisemakers and their leader tossed bass solos into the 10-minute opener “The Great Divide,” played impromptu medleys and sprinkled unexpected bass-and-piano and drum-organ-and-piano musical breakdowns and classically themed piano solos inside of hits such as “Mandolin Rain” and “The Way it Is,” respectively. And when it came time to cover the Grateful Dead – with a tender version of “Black Muddy River” – Hornsby introduced it not as a song he played with his former group, but as a cover he recorded with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.

The show took place in the shadow of downtown under a semi-permanent tent-like structure outfitted with lights that bathed the band in calming reds, blues and purples as it performed in the cool summer air. It was another fine performance for the so-tight-they’re-loose Noisemakers as they played to a relatively inattentive crowd and struggled with the nuances of the quieter songs getting lost in the constant chatter and lengthy stretches of grass before them.

Stretching it out is a way of life for Hornsby & Noisemakers, who played just 16 songs in 130 minutes. Hornsby addressed their penchant for improv after sneaking a bit of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” inside of “M.I.A. in Miami” during the “back-porch” portion of the show, which found the pianist seated at the front of the stage and playing dulcimer as drummer Chad White joined in on washboard.

Hornsby played a snippet of “Rehab Reunion” before an out-of-tune dulcimer caused him to abandon the song and switch instruments before kicking into a radical rearrangement of “Valley Road.” He melded hip-hop and mountain music on “Prairie Dog Town” before returning to the piano bench and jumping into the homestretch, with another hit, Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence.”

He strapped on an accordion for “On the Western Skyline,” which like the encore of “Rainbow’s Cadillac,” was rearranged and elongated. “Rainbow” in particular encapsulated Hornsby’s approach to his songs – running nearly 10 minutes and outfitted in a musical guise that more closely resembled the Dead’s version of “(Turn on Your) Lovelight” than his own track, it turned the commons stage into a revival tent and sent concertgoers into the night with a sense of musical renewal.