Well, we blinked our eyes and Riot Fest was over. These were the best and worst shows we saw throughout the weekend at Douglas Park. See you next year, Chicago music fest season!
Best
No Doubt
There was something so nostalgic about No Doubt’s set, and it took me back to the days when I used to sing “Hey Baby” on my karaoke machine. Gwen Stefani was a little over the top at times, but she totally rocked it. –Rianne Coale
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Manchester Orchestra
I really, really tried to find an unexpected favorite: I saw a ton of bands I wasn’t totally familiar with and particularly liked Every Time I Die (not including the screaming) and Direct Hit! I’m glad I got to see Ice Cube reunite with MC Ren and DJ Yella of N.W.A. for “Straight Outta Compton,” though showing the trailer for the movie was not necessary. Local rockers Meat Wave are just plain good, and Gwar is, uh, outrageous and worth seeing as a guitar-powered, deliberately ridiculous spectacle. But the only performance that really shook me was one that’s shaken me before at Lolla, twice: Atlanta rock monster Manchester Orchestra simply puts most other bands to shame on stage, and it says a lot that the group can still impress me the third time around, without a new album to promote. Andy Hull is an incredible singer and leader, and while I’m sorry nothing else at Riot Fest came along to compete, awesome is awesome. –Matt Pais
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Runner-up: Foxtrott
Something Riot Fest could use more of is promising new bands that aren’t just doing the same thing as everyone else. Montreal trio Foxtrott is just a singer/keyboardist, drummer and French horn player, and the band’s early-Sunday set, even if it seemingly wasn’t up the alley of fans there for the harder stuff, brought a different kind of energy—the courage to carve a fresh lane.–Matt Pais
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No Doubt
I was super-excited to see No Doubt, and no doubt they delivered. Gwen Stefani knows the way to our hearts from taking a selfie with a fan to telling us she ordered deep dish pizza. Her performance was a greatest hits show and took me back 20 years to 1995 when I saw No Doubt open for Bush, and she’s just as great now as she was then. Scratch that–better. She showed she can still rock the stage, energetically jumping up and down to “Spiderwebs” and climbing the scaffolding for “Just a Girl.”
It was a hella good show! – Leonor Vivanco
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Modest Mouse
The group is in my top-five favorites ever, and this was my first time catching them live. While Modest Mouse did a good mix from new record “Strangers to Ourselves” and two more recent records “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” and “Good News for People Who Love Bad News,” I’m kicking myself again for missing the band’s Chicago stop on their tour a few weeks ago. This set was the expected festival version of Modest Mouse, and an hour and a half wasn’t long enough to accommodate those more appreciative of the outfit’s brilliant older stuff. Here’s to hoping for a “The Lonesome Crowded West” 20th anniversary tour in 2017.–Heather Schroering
Runner-up: Jimmy Cliff
He was an absolutely incredible presence who delivered the danciest beats, at 67, no less.–Heather Schroering
The Lawrence Arms
I can’t objectively review a Lawrence Arms show—a band I totally love—because I know Brendan Kelly. On top of helming the hilarious @nihilist_arbys parody Twitter and this awesome Chicago punk band, he’s my Monday night bartender. But since my girlfriend and I got to go backstage and see the local veterans rip it up in front of a very large crowd, I’d be remiss not to include this in my festival highlights. It was such a special show.–Josh Terry
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Runner-up: Meat Wave
Besides the Lawrence Arms, there wasn’t a better energy on Saturday at Riot Fest than Meat Wave. Giving festivalgoers a preview of its brand new album, “Delusion Moon,” out Friday, the hard-hitting, nothing-held-back trio kept things tight and simple during a crazy mid-afternoon set at one of the small stages off to the side of the fest. The crowd was packed in but also intimate, giving DIY house show lifers a chance to get up close and mosh while the newcomers got an in-your-face introduction to an exciting new band that’s bound to take over the city and the country’s good-taste punks.–Josh Terry
Circle pit opening up during "Network". God, @meatwaveband are the best. #RiotFest pic.twitter.com/H9uuOEL3Vi
— Josh Terry (@JoshhTerry) September 12, 2015
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Runner-up: Taking Back Sunday (second set)
Maybe the worst-kept secret in Riot Fest history was the “secret” show Taking Back Sunday played Sunday (lol) at an uncharacteristically small stage (Revolt stage) at an uncharacteristically early time (4 p.m.) billed as “???.” While it was rumored the long-running emo-punk group would be playing entirely new songs, it was all the hits including songs from “Louder Now” and “Tell All Your Friends.” While I didn’t catch the band’s headlining set the night prior, I can report that frontman Adam Lazzara’s dexterous microphone skills are still intact (he flung that thing around the entire time and never dropped it) and that the band still sounds sharp on an intimate stage.–Josh Terry
I saw Taking Back Sunday (@TBSOfficial) play a not-so-secret show and play all the hits on a small stage #RiotFest pic.twitter.com/ANsRNXKKbE
— Josh Terry (@JoshhTerry) September 14, 2015
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Worst
Chef’Special
REALLY terrible. It sounded like the band couldn’t decide what genre they wanted to fall under, so they just said, “What the hell?” and went with every single one there is. “Hard-core carnivore. Hard-core carnivore.” Imagine hearing that over and over and over again. Yeah. It was bad.–Rianne Coale
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Chef’Special
As soon as this set happened on Friday, I knew it would be hard to top. Er, bottom. Er, whatever. This Dutch band has no idea what it wants to be, jumping from rap-metal to reggae to blues to pop to even EDM, doing none of it well. Meanwhile, the lyrics sounded like they should have been delivered by animated characters in a kids’ movie. The clip below features an attempted sing-along about being the biggest monkey. Just so awful.– Matt Pais
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Runner-up: New Politics
I gave this Danish band a quick lesson before the festival and thought it could be fun. Lesson learned. Sunday afternoon’s performance was total amateur hour, with singer David Boyd acting out lyrics with hand gestures, foolishly pretending to shoot a shotgun into the air and doing gymnastics as a way of over-compensating for the group’s anonymous music and trite lyrics. After about five minutes New Politics was already covering Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” for no reason, and toward the end of the set Boyd said the band would be back in the area in November—then noted that he wasn’t sure of the tour dates and if Chicago was on the schedule. Just one more addition to the list of lame, unprofessional behavior on display here. – Matt Pais
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Snoop Dogg
All other acts I saw over the weekend were on time for their sets. The only exception: Snoop. I mean, a half-hour late? Just ridiculous and rude. I was even wondering if he was here when a DJ started playing music without him onstage. When he did grace us with his presence, no apologies. He was scheduled to play “Doggystyle” in full, and did play hits like “Gin and Juice” and “Who Am I (What’s My Name)?” but also mixed in more recent ones including “Drop It Like It’s Hot.” He let us know Riot Fest told him he had three minutes left to play and acted upset that they want to cut him off. You’ll get no sympathy from me Snoop. Next time show up on time like everybody else. The fest had to kill the mic and lights to allow headliner Modest Mouse to start at the next stage. – Leonor Vivanco
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Food tickets and cash only
What year is it, Riot Fest? Between the terrible sound job, cash-only business and lack of phone service, I started to wonder if entering the gates threw us into a 1997 time warp. The food tickets were a joke. Not only were the lines to get them long, the entire concept is a greedy disadvantage to the vendors. I generally dislike comparing music festivals, but if Lollapalooza can offer micro-chipped wristbands that can be attached to your bank card, the least Riot Fest can do is allow vendors to collect their own money for the sake of convenience, but it suggests an agenda here. On the food front, I really wanted to like the truffle aioli fries from Fat Shallot, but the hot sun on Sunday made the sauce most unappetizing in a way that might finally put aioli next to mayo on my gag-worthy list of foods not to be eaten.
–Heather Schroering
This truffle aioli is gettin' weird in the sun ¿¿¿¿ pic.twitter.com/KGQky06nrc
— Heather Schroering (@OhItsHeather) September 13, 2015
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Food tickets
If you look at my wallet, you’d see it’s full of five food tickets I thought I’d need before the festival ended. Riot Fest didn’t just let you pay cash if you got hungry; you had to go buy tickets to pay for your food. Listen, I understand why this exists: It makes money for the festival knowing that people will probably buy more tickets than what they can eat. Only the savviest of consumers (basically no one) will know exactly what they’re going to order all three days, so they buy the proper amount of food tickets. That’s a shame.–Josh Terry
Yelawolf
Yelawolf is another white rapper who is somewhat affiliated with Eminem. He had an OK verse on that A$AP Rocky song “1Train,” but other than that the only thing you should know about Yelawolf is that his booze-laden brand of southern rap is dangerously close to becoming Kid Rock—which isn’t an insult for his hordes of fans, but for pretty much everyone else it’s a good sign to stay away. Also, Yelawolf did his best (and failed) to explain his support of the Confederate Flag in a pretty ham-fisted onstage rant. There are hundreds of better rappers you could spend an evening festival set with. –Josh Terry
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Plus
The Hellzapoppin Circus Sideshow Revue
This may not be the traditional performing act you’d be inclined to see at a music festival, but it’s a side attraction that fits right in with the vibe of Riot Fest … or should I say “sideshow”? From the fire-eating woman to the man who has just a torso, the entire event reminded me of something plucked right out of “American Horror Story” (a show I LOVE). Having never been to a sideshow (are they still around?), it was quite a sight to behold, even worth missing a few music performances I had hoped to see. Seriously, when you walk through the demon-esque clown mouth heading inside of the sideshow, you get engulfed in the performing attractions. –Akeem Lawanson
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Riot Fest Speaks: Basement Screams
Moderated by Metro’s Joe Shanahan, an icon in his own right, there wasn’t a better event for the curious music fan than the Chicago-centric panel closing out the semi-hidden Riot Fest Speaks stage. Featuring a lineup of local music figures like Bloodshot Records’ Nan Warshaw, Naked Raygun’s Jeff Pezzati, Rise Against’s Joe Principe, the Lawrence Arms’ Brendan Kelly, the Bollweevils’ Daryl Wilson and Dem Hopkins, founder of the now-defunct punk club Oz, this panel was full of candid and revealing details about the city’s history and how tight-knit the music community is here. Perhaps the most-quotable line was from Warshaw, who said, “I think Chicago has the best music scene in the entire world, but I think that’s kind of a secret.” Hear, hear.–Josh Terry
#RiotFest Speaks. Nan @BSHQ, @badsandwich, Joe from @MetroChicago and so much more. This is so cool. pic.twitter.com/7nUqHl5e4e
— Josh Terry (@JoshhTerry) September 13, 2015
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Stage banter
Because it’s a punk festival by and large, Riot Fest can bring out some of the snarkiest and most refreshingly blunt stage banter out of any major, local three-day-event. Two of the funniest? Elway, the early Saturday afternoon Colorado punk band, kept calling out Fidlar fans (who were playing at the next stage over) for waiting at an empty space instead of seeing an actual band. On the other hand, Heems played some rare songs by Das Racist (his earlier group) during his Friday evening slot because as he tells it, “The crowd looks nice but they aren’t as good at rapping as I am.” De La Soul was funny too for berating security guards and photographers for not having enough fun at the rap icons’ Sunday set.–Josh Terry
Another #RiotFest highlight: Heems' (@HIMANSHU) socks during 'Flag Shopping' pic.twitter.com/3CtC7EHvGj
— Josh Terry (@JoshhTerry) September 13, 2015
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All Rise brewing
Sure, Riot Fest co-founder and Cobra Lounge owner Sean McKeough also owns All Rise Brewing, so it’s not really a shock to see the upstart beer company at the festival. But regardless of any perceived nepotism, this was the most delicious alcoholic beverage you could put in your body this weekend (that you didn’t sneak in). Maybe that’s not an especially high bar considering Dos Equis, Newcastle and Heineken were your beer options, but I shouldn’t understate how delicious All Rise’s Wonder Beer is for an afternoon sip between shows. What was last year’s best kept-secret was now one of the hottest commodities of the weekend, considering the lines (and the bees in the tent).–Josh Terry
#RiotFest MVP: @AllRiseBrewing pic.twitter.com/Q1FAiS3sXi
— Josh Terry (@JoshhTerry) September 14, 2015
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