RIOT FEST is hitting the big 2-0 this year—midlife crisis? Nah, they’re throwing a three-day rager in Chicago’s Douglass Park (Sept 19-21) with headliners like GREEN DAY (who probably still know all the words to Dookie), BLINK-182 (Tom’s back, but don’t ask him about UFOs right now), WEEZER (yes, they’ll play the sweater song), and Jack White (who’ll either shred a guitar or build one onstage). Oh, and 90+ other bands. Bring earplugs.
“I just wanted to put a show together with all of my favorite bands,” festival founder Michael Petryshyn said back in 2005, probably while high on punk rock and delusions of grandeur.
Two decades later, RIOT FEST is that chaotic friend who somehow has their life together. They’ve hosted butter sculptures of John Stamos (RIP, Full House fans), reunited bands everyone thought were dead, and this year’s lineup is gloriously unhinged: the SEX PISTOLS (well, most of ’em + Frank Carter cosplaying Johnny Rotten), IDLES (angry poetry club), “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC (polka never dies), THE BEACH BOYS (Mike Love and 12 guys named Jeff), JAWBREAKER (reunion #4, but we’re not complaining), and THE POGUES (Shane MacGowan’s ghost is already tuning a mandolin). Also: ALKALINE TRIO, ALL TIME LOW, KNOCKED LOOSE, RILO KILEY, DROPKICK MURPHYS, BAD RELIGION, THE HOLD STEADY, THE ACADEMY IS… (ellipsis included), COBRA STARSHIP (mid-2000s emo kids, assemble!), and roughly 50 others we don’t have space to name. Bring a spreadsheet.
Born in Chicago’s dive bars, RIOT FEST now resurrects bands like it’s running a punk rock pet cemetery. They’ve brought back THE REPLACEMENTS (twice as drunk as you remember), MISFITS (sans the devil lock hair), and even SLAYER (briefly, before they remembered retirement exists). The fest also books local acts year-round, because Chicago’s music scene doesn’t sleep—it just takes smoke breaks.
Petryshyn said: “We didn’t plan on making it for twenty years. We planned on making it through one weekend. But here we are — still loud, still weird, still building something bigger than we ever meant to.”
Tickets are on sale now. Pro tip: Buy before WEEZER drops another album and the internet implodes.
Chicago Park District just signed a three-year deal with RIOT FEST, because nothing says “community investment” like $3 million earned from mosh-pit adjacent funnel cake sales.
Details at riotfest.org. Poster below—study it, frame it, use it to scare your parents.
