Riot Fest 2022

I think they went about 10 over. If I remember right it ended at like 9:55. Great show for a lifetime YC fan. But they're def gonna announce a tour soon.

Overall for my first Riot Fest, I enjoyed it but I don't really need to go back unless they book another lineup with three headliners I cant miss like this year. I think I'm spoiled by Shaky. Also on Sunday night at 9:45 the security guards were not letting people use the port o potties on the way out and threatening to arrest people for public indeceny. Bad vibes. Crowds and lines were awful Friday but got managable for the rest of the weekend. I'd say of the shows I saw,

1. MCR
2. Yellowcard
3. NIN
4. The Story So Far
5. Less than Jake
6. Front Bottoms
7. Bob Vylan
8. YYY (didn't feel good, not their fault at all. I'm disappointed I missed most of it but hope they'll play Shaky this year.
9. Coolio
10. The Wonder years from the awful food lines

Now that I'm home, I'll add my experiences to the conversation. Definitely a divisive year logistically, so I'll add my 2 cents to the mix before getting into the actual music.

My RF buddy and I decided on driving this year, as he is from Chicago and said public transport had been a bit dicey. We arrived at 11:30 Friday to the Riot Fest advertised parking entrance. Waited in line for a bit and then had your typical festival parking experience by what we thought was an exit near 66. When we crossed the street, we were ALARMED that the entrance line already stretched half way down California. By the time we got in, bought merch, stored merch, filled my camelback, and bought our first (of many) Riot Pops, we were just in time for LS Dunes. I can confirm that the parked was SLAMMED by 2:00 and it was hard just to navigate from stage to stage. A lot of young kids with fake blood, idk must be an MCR thing. However, we were lucky and it didn't actually detract from our festival experience much. I was a little pissy that we missed Algiers because my friend forgot to eat lunch, but in hindsight, it probably was smart getting dinner super early and only waiting about 20 minutes in line. Got a great spot in front of the screen for MCR with a bunch of super chill fans, so my experience was vastly different from that of those at the main stage. Ducked out during the last song and made it back to the car with no problem. Leaving the park was a whole other story. Turns out, what I thought was an exit, was just a place to turnaround. With some encouragement, we and a couple other cars hopped the curb and found ourselves in the ride share lane surrounded by festival goers. Took it slow, and just as I thought we were finally through, there were some cones set up directing us BACK INTO THE PARK. It was so chaotic around us, I thought one more agent of chaos wouldn't hurt and moved the cones so we could make our getaway. Little did we know our parking fun had JUST BEGUN.

We arrived at the same parking site at the same time the next day. It was noticeably emptier which was nice, but there was noone working the entrance. We saw someone with the wrong colored vest and a homemade sign saying $40 for parking, but eventually, someone did charge us $35. However, as soon as we got out of our car, we overheard someone saying about how it is a public park and nobody should be charging us to park. Then a police showed up and someone point to the guy who was charging people money. In the end, we totally got scammed, but we were of the mindset that they can't tow us all and continued into the park. Saturday was so much better, crowd-wise. Food and drink were definitely pricey ($10 for a 5% Riot Pop, $5 for a 0%), but it was my first fest since the pandemic, and I was ready to SPEND. My buddy didn't want to stay for all of Misfits and, based on our experience the night before, he wanted to beat the crowd so he could get his car out of the park. After meeting at our rendezvous point, his exiting experience was even MORE bonkers. Someone tried to scam him out of another $40 to leave, and when he went to get his "supervisor", my friend just sped off. Then he apparently had to do some offroading just to get out and avoid more scammers. Absolutely wild. We parked in the neighborhoods for free the next day.

Sunday was also better crowd-wise, just hot as hell. Security getting into the fest decided to step it up for the final day. I was thoroughly searched, even though wasn't even given a second glance the first two days. I always filled up my camelback early, so I can't comment how the lines were later in the day. I do agree that there should probably be another water station on the east side of the fest, but the staff at Riot/Roots were SUPER on top of handing out free water to anyone and everyone. Didn't ride any rides this year, but did spend about 45 minutes wandering on Saturday while it was overcast and windy. The arcade was cool and so was the lounge area near the skate ramp. For me, the only real negative all weekend was the heat, but I am so so so thankful that NIN didn't get rained out!

edit: Just thought I'd throw out there that I'm really bummed fests seem to be moving away from physical printed maps/schedules. I know save the trees, but I really rely on those!

I ended up taking a photo of one of the big schedule installation just so I could have one that was easier to read. My brain doesn’t work with lines of set times on the app. Grids were much easier to navigate.

Sorry you had a shitty time parking but glad you didn’t let it ruin your days.

Well I am waiting on answers to questions on like 6 different projects I am working on right now so while I wait for these MFers to respond I guess I'll recap my Riot Fest..

Friday: Tried to get there for Sincere Engineer and the corn dog pit but alas the CTA gods had other ideas. Then had to wait like 45 minutes to get my VIP wristband so I missed Holy Fawn too. shuck says I saw LS Dunes but for the life of me I do not remember this, so for the sake of this review Foxy Shazam is gonna be the first artist I saw that day and what a fantastic way to kick off the weekend! Tons of weird funky energy and I'm always a sucker for a band with some horns. Then wandered over to Algiers at the Rebel Stage, the best stage at the festival IMO, where shuck and I debated for a solid 30 minutes whether or not that was Matt Tong on the drums (it was) and wondered how in the hell the lead singer could wear that leather jacket for the entire set (he did). Jeff Rosenstock was fun but not super memorable, Descendents were pretty legendary and I'm glad I went over. Then Cloud Nothings melted my face off while the drummer from Wargasm bummed a cig from me and added me on Instagram. Not gonna lie, I felt pretty cool. I was debating between Alkaline Trio and Bleachers and I definitely made the wrong choice to go over to Bleachers... Zach convinced me to walk over to see if Marky Ramone's set was gonna be any good and honestly, yeah it was. If my eyes were closed, I would have had no clue that Joey Ramone wasn't singing those songs. Then along with everyone else at Riot Fest we went to see MCR. Originally I think I judged them too harshly for not having some kind of big, huge theatrical stage set up but after looking back at the videos I took and remembering the set list... I was wrong. It was really fucking good. Grandma Gerard Way is really carrying the weight of that band on his back, but hey it works.

Saturday: CTA gods smiled upon us this fateful day, so we were able to get in early to see Mannequin Pussy fucking tear it up. This was the... third time I've seen them this year and I'm glad the setlist was a little different than the other two times. The cathartic scream we all collectively took was nice. Walked over to Joy Formidable for the one song I know of theirs. The Get Up Kids were really good and I somehow did not realize they were from Kansas? I remember being really fixated on that Kansas flag on stage for some reason…After the Get Up Kids, I didn't have a lot of allegiances and also I was pretty drunk at this point (props to my new friend Bruce at the VIP bar for the hookup) so I just followed people around to 7 Seconds, War on Women, The Mezingers and Bad Religion. We went to GWAR which was much more crowded than it had any right to be and I was just very... confused. I know GWAR and their schtick, but I was just... not understanding the music that was coming from those costumes?? 2 + 2 was not equaling 4 at that moment for some reason. Anyway, left that for Sunny Day Real Estate which was really great for the 25 minutes I was there and I left wishing I didn't have the Yellowcard conflict because I would have liked to seen the rest of that set. But it was time for one of the main reasons I was there (and judging by the size of the crowd, apparently the reason A LOT of the people at Riot Fest was there): Yellowcard. Ocean Avenue might be one of the most important albums from my teenage years. Yellowcard is the first band I remember traveling to go see when I was 16... they just mean a lot to me and are one of the reasons I got into live music. Not gonna lie, I cried for the first two songs of the set. The nostalgia and the tequila was kicking me in the feels HARD. I was fully expecting the crowd to be me and a bunch of douchey bros and… it was me and a bunch of decent bros who were actually signing their hearts out right there with me. I felt seen. It was a great set. Also, it’s been a while since I’ve heard a live band do a reprise of a song but that’s how important Ocean Avenue was to everyone there.

Sunday: After a delicious brunch at La Josie with garageland , Dave Maynar , stinky & shuck  (and lovely significant others), we got in a little later and the first act of the day was Jawbox where it was really nice to see Your Aunt Barb on the bass. Zola Jesus was great and mesmerized me with her funky, flowy dance moves. I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Lunachicks' set... as Zach said "Props to the drummer who is the only man in a band with Chicks in the name." Jimmy Eat World is always a great nostalgic set and I definitely got some hard side eye from some people around me as I jumped around to Sweetness (one of my top 5 favorite songs of all time). I was originally super excited to see Midtown but disappointed because they played two of my favorite songs at the very beginning of the set, which I missed, so stinky and I just sat and chilled at the back for the rest of the set. I kinda feel bad about missing Sleater Kinney, but from most reviews it sounds like I didn’t miss much. Plus I feel like I’ll be able to see them again soon. But then… it was time for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to absolutely burn the place to the ground. Probably the other reason I bought my ticket to Riot Fest was the YYYs… I had never seen them before. Miss Karen O dominating the stage in her multicolored vinyl rain jacket/umbrella hat outfit was iconic. All four people on stage genuinely look like they enjoy being up there, which also helps my enjoyment of the show. This also makes me wonder why they don’t play live more often? Anyway, toward the end of the set they do a killer version of Heads Will Roll, and per Zach, this should have been the last song of their set. And even if it was, I would have died happy. BUT THEN! They pulled out Date with the Night and I lost it. The perfect ending to what I believe is the greatest set I’ve ever seen at a festival. We ended the night with Nine Inch Nails and I don’t know how I can still hear. We were even pretty far back and standing at the adjacent main stage. Probably should have put ear plugs in for that one. Anyway, the set was great as usual, amazing camera work, great visuals. I don’t like how they’ve been closing with Hurt lately, so we left a touch early to beat the crowd.

Overall…. I gotta say I find it a total pain in the ass location, but Riot Fest is always a really good time. Again… as long as they continue to book semi-rare pop punk reunions, they’ll probably keep getting my money.

Top 5 Sets (in order)
1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2. Yellowcard
3. Cloud Nothings
4. My Chemical Romance
5. Mannequin Pussy

Edit: wow that was really long. I am really bored at work.

^^^^^ rip

on a mission to drop out of every single Chicago festival I see!

No. Theres an announcement with dates, but no location. Im sure if somebody does sleuthing into public records theyll be able to figure out where they applied for a permit.

sure seems they got a double album play out of it

Will be curious to see how this will work. Postal Service headlines and Death Cab subs on the Riot with a band in between on Roots?

Or they could just have booked Postal Service and Death Cab is just a moot point here. They can only play the 16th unless Ben is gonna do 5 days in a row. And they play the 15th one and the 16th the other. I mean theyre festival sets so theyll be shorter at least.

Are Postal Service really that big enough to headline this? I know it's Riot but they seem much smaller than acts like Paramore or Green Day. See them more as a sub than anything.

Paramore def out with their Lolla date.

Calling it now, Postal Service headlining set with a Death Cab aftershow the night before. That would kinda screw over Chicago as a stop unless they circled back, but every other scenario seems for too intense for the window they have.

GUT FEELING