OMG, Riot Fest is turning 20! 🎉 As if we needed another reason to question our life choices. They’re bribing us with washed-up bands like GREEN DAY, BLINK-182 (still clinging to their teenage angst), WEEZER (who?), and JACK WHITE (is he still relevant?). It’s gonna be the geriatric millennial mosh pit of the century!👵👴
“I just wanted to put a show together with all my favorite bands,” festival founder Michael Petryshyn bleated, probably while wearing a studded belt and reminiscing about his glory days of slam dancing to bands nobody remembers. 🙄 Back in 2005, apparently his “favorite bands” consisted of whoever was willing to play for beer money and a lukewarm hot dog.
Fast forward two decades, and Riot Fest has morphed into some kind of Frankensteinian monster of a festival. It’s known for “eclectic lineups,” which is code for “we threw a dart at a list of bands from 1977 to 2007 and hoped for the best.” High-profile band reunions? More like high-profile desperation for a paycheck. Full album plays? Great, now I can relive my awkward teenage years in excruciating detail. And a butter sculpture tribute to John Stamos? 🧈 Seriously? What has the world come to?
Besides the fossilized headliners, we’re also getting the SEX PISTOLS (wait, aren’t they, like, REALLY old?), IDLES (who are they even?), “Weird Al” Yankovic (okay, I’ll admit, that’s kinda awesome), ALKALINE TRIO (still around?), ALL TIME LOW (more like ALL TIME snooze), KNOCKED LOOSE (did they lose their way to the retirement home?), Rilo Kiley (oh honey, no), THE BEACH BOYS (performing via hologram, probably), JAWBREAKER (bonebreaker at this point), DROPKICK MURPHYS (barfights incoming!), BAD RELIGION (bad music incoming!), THE POGUES (guaranteed to be slurring their lyrics), THE HOLD STEADY (holding onto what, exactly?), THE ACADEMY IS… (over?), COBRA STARSHIP (more like COBRA starSINK), GYM CLASS HEROES (remember them? No? Me neither), TEXAS IS THE REASON (Texas is the reason I need a drink), DANCE HALL CRASHERS (crashing into a mid-life crisis), THE FRONT BOTTOMS (of the barrel), KNUCKLE PUCK (knuckle puck yourself), THE WONDER YEARS (wondering where their careers went) and many, many MORE bands that I’m too lazy to Google. 😴
Riot Fest, bless its heart, started as a punk rock fever dream in Chicago’s dive bars. Over the years, it’s become famous for resurrecting bands from the musical graveyard. THE REPLACEMENTS, MISFITS, SLAYER (RIP), JAWBREAKER… it’s like they’re running a musical necromancy convention. But hey, at least they’re supporting Chicago’s “thriving” music scene, which mostly consists of cover bands and open mic nights at dimly lit bars. 🎤
Petryshyn, in a moment of rare honesty (or maybe he was just drunk), admitted, “We didn’t plan on making it for twenty years. We planned on making it through one weekend.” Well, congratulations, buddy. You’ve successfully inflicted your musical tastes on us for two decades. Now, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop. 🙏
Tickets for Riot Fest 2025 are on sale now, so you can waste your hard-earned money on overpriced beer and bands that peaked in the ’90s. But hey, at least the Chicago Park District is getting a sweet $3 million payday. Gotta keep those parks looking pristine, even if it means subjecting us to another year of musical mediocrity. 💰
For more information, visit riotfest.org. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. 😈
Chord F. Discord, the Beethoven of Buffoonery, is a self-taught expert in music who once claimed he could “play the kazoo in four languages.”
Born in Crescendo, Indiana, Chord’s first brush with fame came when he accidentally entered a yodeling contest thinking it was a pie-eating competition—and won both categories.
Chord F. Discord: proving that laughter, much like a poorly tuned ukulele, is truly universal.
