It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Riot Fest founders Mike Petryshyn and Sean McKeough (R.I.P.) first organized a group of their favorite punk bands to play at the famed Congress Theater in Chicago way back in 2005. They may have only had modest ambitions at the time, but little did they know that first humble punk-rock shindig would eventually blossom into the gargantuan event that we all know and love today.
Indeed, although Riot Fest would utilize a variety of venues/spaces as it grew throughout the first decade of its existence, it has called Douglas Park home for the past 10 years now, an ideal setting to host the festival’s sprawling variety of punky and eclectic entertainment. And given this year’s iteration is effectively celebrating Riot Fest’s 20th birthday, that aforementioned “entertainment” promised to be nothing short of epic, featuring a stacked lineup of pop-punk and alternative-rock all-stars to compliment the crusty atmosphere of carny games/rides, nicknamed porta-potties, and “butter” John Stamos statues (rumor has it he may actually show up this year). And it was a rightfully beautiful and toasty day to commemorate such an occasion, as tens of thousands of fans descended upon Douglas Park to kick off day one of Riot Festivities on September 19th. Here’s a recap of Friday’s action:
Mac Sabbath
While most folks know that punk-rock is Riot Fest’s main bread-and-butter (Stamos) attraction, as alluded to above, humor is also a subtle aspect of the festival’s distinctively subversive personality. Which is why kicking off Day 1 with a set from the self-anointed “kings of drive-thru metal” (Mac Sabbath) seemed all too fitting. As you might suspect, the band meshes the riffs of Black Sabbath with a McDonald ’s-themed aesthetic, often to hilarious effect. If the costumes weren’t amusing enough (Ronald Osborne on the mic, Slayer MacCheese on guitar, etc.) their reworking of classic Sabbath songs into fast-food themed parodies like “Chicken of the Grave”, “Sweet Beef”, or “Frying Pan” (parody of “Iron Man”), really takes the (Mc)cake. You get the idea: if you’re a fan of Sabbath (and really, who isn’t?), McDonald’s, and have a sense of humor, Mac Sabbath proved to be the perfect appetizer for a particularly peculiar day at Riot Fest.
Puddles Pitty Party
Clowns often come in a wide variety of sizes and dispositions, but broadly speaking, people’s opinions/reactions to them typically fall into two disparate categories: delight or fear. But there’s another, somewhat forgotten clown category that best describes Puddles, the 6’8” one-man clown show that constitutes Puddles Pitty Party: the sad clown. Indeed, Puddles performed his often confounding sad-clown lounge act in convincing fashion to a sizable crowd of curious onlookers Friday afternoon. While it was neither particularly silly nor terrifying, it was nonetheless captivating, as any good clown’s performance should be. Cheers to Puddles, and his earnest and noble pursuit to make sad clowns great again.
Harm’s Way
There’s really not a good segway between Puddles Pitty Party and Harm’s Way, the Chicago-based hardcore-punk band that took to the Roots stage (which is one of the two larger headliner stages) at 3:45. Indeed, whereas Puddles’s performance was peculiarly somber and nuanced, Harm’s Way’s performance was, by contrast, punishingly aggressive and savagely straightforward. This is, after all, a band that specializes in the type of pummeling brutality and raw power that effectively serves as proverbial catnip for hardcore moshpit enthusiasts throughout both the metal and hardcore communities alike. And suffice to say, those folks got what they came for during Harm’s Way’s set, as the band rocked their distinctive industrial-metal-tinged brand of hardcore with authority during what could only be described as a pulverizing 40-minute set.
The moshpit was a consistently chaotic sea of flailing arms, banging heads, and stomping boots that only seemed to grow in intensity throughout their performance, particularly during “Infestation,” which came about midway through their set. From then on, what was already a formidable mosh pit swelled into a typhoon-sized circle pit that continued to aggressively swirl in earnest for the remainder of their performance. The band arguably saved the best for last with a rightfully vicious performance of “Become a Machine”, which helped put the proverbial exclamation mark on what was a delightfully devastating set. Respect.
Sparks
After indulging in all the unbridled mayhem that constituted Harm’s Way’s performance, it was time to go back into peculiarly nuanced territory, which came courtesy of art-rock veterans Sparks, who took the Rise stage (aka the “Weird” stage) shortly after 5:00. Suffice to say the vibe and crowd could not have been more different, as evidenced by a somewhat elderly woman standing next to me in her walker, grooving and vibing away to the pleasantly eccentric beats of Sparks. That study in contrasts is actually a good microcosm of the electric experience that is Riot Fest as a whole: the fact that you can get your ass-kicked in a volatile moshpit or geek out to Sparks all within the span of a couple of hours, if that’s your jam. In the case of this reviewer, both were equally enjoyable in their own (extremely different) ways, but Sparks’ uniquely cerebral and eccentric performance particularly made an impression. Their closing number, “Please Don’t Fuck Up My World,” resonated more than ever and effectively served as the icing on their quirky cake. Cheers to Sparks, who, after 50 years of existence, still sounded as relevant and vital as ever, as evidenced by their terrific Friday evening set.
Weird Al Yankovic
If it seemed like Friday’s edition of Riot Fest sported a decidedly “weird” flavor, there was good reason for that, considering the legendary Weird Al Yankovic was headlining the Rise stage that night. In fact, Riot Fest actually renamed the Rise stage in his honor specifically on Friday, rechristening it as “Weird Al’s Weird World Stage”. This was the stage that naturally played host to the wide variety of unusual acts you have just read about (safe for Harm’s Way, of course), all of which was a lead up to the main event for the evening, the aforementioned Weird Al. And Mr.
Yankovic did not disappoint on that front, and really, how could he, considering his legendary status as the preeminent comedic musician of all time? Granted a big part of Al’s whole schtick is the visual aesthetic and costumes that only heighten the absurdity of his parodies, and fortunately for fans in attendance Friday night, he and his merry band of misfits came with full outfits in tow. Indeed, throughout Al’s frequently amusing performance, the band would often take a break to change outfits/costumes in preparation for the next comedic display to come.
To keep the crowd entertained during these wardrobe exchanges, the audience was treated to various classic comedic skits and clips from Al’s glory days, kind of like several mini-intermissions that typically lasted a couple of minutes at a time on average. But of course, the real highlights were the performances themselves, of which “Smells Like Nirvana”, “Amish Paradise”, and “Fat” particularly resonated with the crowd. Interestingly, Al only performed one verse of “Eat It” as part of a broader medley that directly transitioned into “Like a Surgeon”, perhaps because it was fairly easy to throw on a Michael Jackson vest and slap a surgical cap on his head in short order, but, in any event, both were hilarious in spite of their brevity. Al closed the night with a Star Wars-themed encore that included “The Saga Begins” and “Yoda”, with a “Lion Sleeps Tonight” jingle thrown in for good measure. The consummate entertainer, in every sense of the word, Weird Al’s performance served as the perfect nightcap to end what was a delightfully strange day 1 of Riot Fest.
Random Day 1 tidbits:
Funniest t-shirt sighting: “All Hail Gay Satan!”
Favorite headshot t-shirt sighting: Benny Hill
Best overheard convo: “everybody knows that Oakland is like the Jersey of the Bay Area…”
