Riot Fest 2024 Review Part 1: The Bands

I really do need to start this out by asking Riot Fest to forgive me for my stupidity. For as much as I talk about how much I love the Fest both on this very site as well as in my everyday life, in reality I'm a semi-recent Riot Fest convert. Despite living in Chicago since 2011, my first Riot Fest wasn't until 2019. And I'm honestly not sure why I didn't find my way over to one before that. I think for a few years in a row, there was brutal weather on the weekend of RF, so I just always associated Riot with rain and that ungodly late September heat. My wife got us passes to go to one Sunday of Lollapalooza in 2012 or 2013 and while it was fun, it also poured rain the entire day so I'm sure that was always in the back of my mind as well.

And in that period of 2011-2018, I missed some of my absolute favorite artists come through town for no other reason than my aforementioned stupidity. Weezer playing the entire blue album? No Doubt and System of a Down in the same year? Nine Inch Nails and Queens of the Stone Age just a few years later? These are all bands that have had a huge impact on both my musical taste and, in some cases with older acts, were the soundtrack to some of my formative years?

Like I said, I finally went to a Riot Fest in 2019, absolutely fell in love with the experience, and haven't missed a single day of the fest since. And yes, seeing the headliners every night is the ultimate draw, but it's always been the smaller bands leading up to those headliners where you truly fall in love and actually find something new for your rotation.

With that in mind, I wanted to start our coverage of Riot Fest with some awards for the best bands I saw all weekend. These are entirely arbitrary, completely made up and have no formal nomination process. But I am coming off of a three day festival so please have a heart.

FRIDAY

Best Opening Act - Winona Fighter

Kicking off the Metro Stage on Friday was Winona Fighter and anyone who spends any time around this site knows how big of a fan I am. They blew me (and everyone else) away opening for Bayside earlier this year (review here) and continue to absolutely annihilate audiences with punk rock energy and some of the catchiest songs you'll ever mosh to. The bad news is that I don't think Best Opening Act is a title Winona Fighter is going to be holding for long. There's no way they aren't headlining their own nationwide tour some time in the near future and seeing their name shoot up the festival posters they're inevitably going to continue to appear on.

Maybe they can make it up to us with a full length debut in 2025?

Most Surprisingly 'Still Got It' - The Offspring

Nothing against The Offspring, or any of the other acts on the bill that have been going for 25+ years...but 25+ years is a LOT of time. The rock and roll lifestyle isn't easy, even if you only consider the toll traveling and performing can take over literal decades. I'm 41 years old and have done zero tours in my life and I still sometimes tweak my back turning around to look at how I just tweaked a different part of my back. Dexter Holland is 58. Noodles is 61. I've gone on and on about how much I love these "Anniversary of X Album" tours and playthroughs that have been all the rage lately, but sometimes bands can't always deliver, whether due to the material not aging well or just plain getting older.

The Offspring erased any doubts like that before they were even done shredding through 'Nitro (Youth Energy)' to kick off their set. Holland's voice has never sounded better. The heavy thrash of Noodles' riffs feels just as heavy now as it did the first time they were unleashed onto the world three decades ago. Sure, some of the lyrics might not have aged particularly well (has anyone called a handgun a 'piece' since 1996?), but it's almost like the band got over the bell curve where they're old enough that those kinds of lyric are clearly tongue in cheek.

It's easy to forget just how massive Smash was when it came out, but Holland and the rest of the band did a hell of a job reminding us of exactly why that was.

Most Nostalgic Time Machine - Sum 41 and New Found Glory

There's just something about the albums you fall in love with your freshman year of college that elevates them above most others in your mind. It's like you listen to way more music for no other reason than you live on your own and you can so why not? And while technically Sum 41's All Killer, No Filler came out during my final month of high school, the album's first smash hit 'Fat Lip' didn't start gaining momentum until the fall, right when I moved into freshman dorms. Bookending that academic year and becoming one of my constant spins over the following summer was New Found Glory's Sticks and Stones. So to see these bands play back to back Friday on the AAA and Metro stages was a shot of nostalgia that brought back all the angst and joy of listening to these bands while navigating both a brand new social experience and the roller-coaster ride that was the first W Bush administration.

Both bands sound exactly as good as they always have, and I don't even have to say something like "if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, the bands even look exactly like they did 20 years ago" because the barricade is far enough from the stage that we all look just like we did two decades ago! Congrats, everyone!

I'd me remiss if I didn't mention that, while you'll be able to continue enjoying New Found Glory in all their live...well, glory, this was Sum 41's last Chicago show. After announcing the end of their tour would be the end of their band, their intimate Concord Music Hall show (read my review here) and Riot Fest performance we the last Chicago is going to see of the band. Because when bands say they're hanging it up, you believe them.

(Looks in Slayer's direction)

Best Taylor Swift Ripoff - Fall Out Boy

The extra buzz, energy, and volume from the second Fall Out Boy took the stage and through their entire almost 2 hour set can be easily summed up as LOCAL BOYS MAKE CHICAGO PROUD. We truly love nothing more than seeing Chicago acts take off into the warm embrace of national and worldwide audiences. And when those conquering heroes come home to headline the first night of a hometown festival, they know they have to make it special.

Essentially doing their version of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, FOB kicked things off launching into 'Chicago Is So Two Years Ago' and 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy' off Take This To Your Grave and proceeded to play a handful of songs off each of their albums chronologically, following Grave with From Under the Cork Tree and working all the way through So Much (for) Stardust. And while they've played sets with this same structure before, you always have to give the home crowd just a tiny bit of a sweetener, with Patrick Stump bringing out fellow local Tim McIlrath from Rise Against to help bring the last chorus home on 'Sugar We're Going Down'.

SATURDAY:

The Set Everyone Was Talking About - St Vincent

No disrespect to Saturday's true headliners Beck and Pavement (or to fellow stage-closers NOFX and Taking Back Sunday), but the only thing anyone in the crowd seemed to be talking about the entire day was St. Vincent. How many times have you seen St. Vincent? What time are you planning on going to get a good spot for St. Vincent? She certainly had a ton of buzz, almost like being the People's Headliner. The aftershow that she performed earlier in the week at Chicago's famous Metro only helped to fuel the fire.

It's not often that you go into a set with the highest possible bar and still have it cleared by a good amount, but that's exactly what the Riot Fest crowd got as a reward for standing in an absolutely sweltering afternoon sun. This was my first time seeing St. Vincent and I'm happy to confirm that every single thing you've heard about her as a performer is true. Her voice sounds perfect. The production and design of her stage show is top notch. And she's just cool. Like, I don't know her personally and I can already tell that she's not only cooler than myself and everyone I've ever met, but probably cooler than maybe just a handful of people on the planet. And she performs like she knows it, which only makes her even cooler. As sharp and savage with her voice as she is with a guitar in her hands, fans of this year's All Born Screaming were treated to hearing the majority of what may be the best album of 2024 live and in person.

Best Wholesome Fun - Sincere Engineer

Corn dog circle pit? Corn dog circle pit.

So forgive me if I don't get all of the details of this exactly on the nose, but I think this is how the story goes: Riot Fest has had a history of fans organizing unconventional mosh pits. Sometimes it's the band that they're moshing to that's unconventional (Jerry Lee Lewis, The B-52's) and sometimes it's the mosh pit itself that's unconventional (playing Uno in the center of a circle pit during Anti-Flag). Inspired by a reference to corn dogs in one of Sincere Engineer's songs a few years back, fans decided to form a corn dog circle pit, to great success. It even followed the band across town to Lollapalooza last year and made yet another triumphant return to Riot Fest this weekend.

I'm not going to lie, the corn dog circle pit was possibly the most fun anyone had at any stage all weekend. Listening to a Chicago band play to a massive crowd while participating in a giant meme-turned-tradition sounds like heaven. But what makes it even better than it sounds is that it's a circle pit anyone could participate in. No one wants to lose their corn dog in the pit, especially if you've got mustard on it, and so while the pit was active, it wasn't rough in the slightest. The whole thing combined to the musical equivalent of having a giant smile on your face for a half hour straight.

HOLY SHIT WHAT DID I JUST SEE? - The Hives

This is reserved for the set that, as you're watching it, it almost seems like you aren't allowed to catch your breath. From the second it starts to the second it ends, it's the epitome if a 'performance'. And when it's over, you have to take a second to gather your thoughts as your brain tries to struggle with the question of "what in the hell was that??"

The Hives took the stage at just before 3:00, perhaps the hottest part of one of the hottest days of the summer. They were decked out in matching black and white suits and facing directly into the sun. And even with all that working against them, they delivered a set that had the entire festival absolutely buzzing well into Sunday. Watching frontman Pelle Almqvist perform for any amount of time tells you that he was put on this planet solely for that purpose. Hell of a voice. Incredible stage presence (on a torn ACL to boot!). Between-songs banter that's completely polished but doesn't feel rehearsed. He's a man that's been a rock star for a long time and epitomizes the title. It also helps to have one of the hardest working (and hardest rocking) bands in the business backing your insanity with equal amounts of their own. The dust kicked up from the mosh pits for The Hives made the air almost unbreathable at times and not a single person left before the set was done.

SUNDAY

Most Valuable: Cover!

No, Cover isn't an obscure punk band you've never heard of. I'm talking about actual cover. The heavens opened up and dumped a whole lot of rain on us both Sunday morning as well as intermittently throughout the early afternoon until around 2-3. The good news is that this wasn't some sudden storm that popped up overnight. There was ample warning in the days leading up to the fest that Sunday was going to be wet, so everyone came prepared with boots and ponchos. The bad news is that dry places to try and eat something out of the rain during prime lunch hours was next to impossible. Fortunately, there are usually enough places tucked around Douglass Park where you can find a quick respite from the rain to chow down. My favorite: the Q101 tent in RiotLand.

Best Production Value - Rob Zombie

No other set the entire weekend felt like the artist took a show that was meant for an amphitheater or arena and brought it to the Riot Fest stage. Just Rob Zombie. He kicked off his set on a giant skull crane contraption that seemed like it doubled as a crows nest on a ship. Every single surface was an LED screen. Fire and heavily colored backlights were used liberally. And I haven't even mentioned the giant robot. A sugar rush for the senses, every single part of Rob Zombie's Riot Fest set was a spectacle, and we were all the better for it. Supporting it all were the Zombie songs we've long loved and raged to starting back in the late 90's with Hillbilly Deluxe (with covers of White Zombie classics 'More Human Than Human' and 'Thunder Kiss '65' thrown in for good measure. It was an absolute blast.

Best Literary Adaptation - Mastodon

If anything would qualify as high-minded and academic during the metal day of Riot Fest, it would have to be Mastodon's set. Progressive metal band playing a concept album loosely based on Melville's Moby Dick? Hell yeah. But don't think that this was a set to bring along a book and monocle to. The full fury of the sea was felt throughout the band's album play of their landmark release Leviathan. Matching the theme was a giant video screen behind the band depicting everything from raging seas and thunderstorms to actual giant Kraken-like undersea beasts. How did flame jets mesh with that undersea aesthetic? Surprisingly well! Heavy metal really does bridge all gaps.

And of course, a gallery of some of my other favorites from the weekend:

Check back later this week for Part 2 of our Riot Fest 2024 coverage!