Another year, another riot.

From the headliners to the openers, Riot Fest’s lineup kept as true to its punk origins as always, while mixing in plenty of metal and emo, some pop acts and the kind of wtf-zaniness that only this fest can deliver. The energy was strong, with spirits undaunted by the monsoons, thunderstorms and mud. And there was a lot of mud.

Friday

One of my favorite things about Riot Fest is how every year, artists perform who I never thought I’d get to see. Usually this goes for older acts, but there’s plenty of nostalgia for Millennials as well. Like with 3OH!3—

—whose unapologetic party-rock scene-rap ripped straight from the annals of MySpace set the weekend’s frenetic pace. Shouting along to their anthems from beginning to end (while surprised at how much I remembered) was the most crunk I’ve been since 2008, and I think something in me healed?

Well, something definitely healed while getting to see Motion City Soundtrack for the first time.

“Everything is Alright” is a joy to hear live… but “Disappear” is its own kind of catharsis, just as powerful now as it was when I was eighteen. Motion City Soundtrack straddles a line between joy and darkness that most other emo bands don’t, so that experiencing their sun-drenched set at a festival while the world outside goes crazy felt appropriate.

At some point that day I also had the best beef of my life, shout out to Buona:

Another great characteristic of Riot Fest is its continuous effort to feature Chicago musicians, especially those who came up in its punk scene. On Friday that included Alkaline Trio—

—who were followed up by another Chicago legend, but not the kind you’d expect here: Tom Skilling, who came out of retirement to give a weather report. I think that might’ve pissed off the weather enough to do what it did for the next few days, though. But we can’t blame Tom—

—not when he brought such an upbeat vibe, and not when he was so earnestly shocked at the overwhelmingly positive reaction everyone had for him.
Then, another great Millennial-nostalgia addition, All-American Rejects—

—who called out the deluxe attendees in their air-conditioned palace, while instead cheering on the “peasants” of GA. (Including myself, because experimenting with VIP last year just reinforced my love of being down on the floor with the people, instead of tiered up from them—GA all day!) AARs played an energetic set, way more in line with a good rock show than a pop show, and I’m hoping to get to see them again one day.

Friday also had another Chicago-based band (and one of my most anticipated for this year), Rise Against:

While their performances of “Swing Life Away” and “The Good Left Undone” were stunning, “Prayer of the Refugee” took on a far more intense, immediate tone than ever before. It was just one of the many times throughout the weekend when artists vocalized their support for immigrants and condemned ICE, as well as showed their support for Palestine—the kind of humanity that you’ll find in an alternative space (even if Morrissey was here, for some fucking reason—more on that in a bit). The sense of solidarity at the Rise Against set was as palpable as it should have been, and perhaps even more so right now.

The night was closed out by Twenty One Pilots, who I’m neutral on, but who sounded like they put on a good set. Instead, I was running back and forth between Iggy Pop—

—and GWAR, the former playing at the Rise stage, with the latter right next door at the newly-returned Radical stage. I love that they brought the Radical back—while I think the village-esque setup in this area in previous years was fun, this space is better suited for that fifth stage, that odd stage, the one off the side for the weird shit. It means more artists, and more music… such as our future immortal alien overlords, GWAR, doing what they do best: killing monsters and drenching the audience in blood. This year’s slaughter included splitting an ICE agent in half, ripping the throat out of a Catholic priest for attempting to hurt baby Gor Gor (their pet dinosaur), mutilating a sleezy trucker and, most importantly, performing a much-needed presidential evisceration:

And like I said earlier, Riot Fest is incredible about bringing older acts in, pieces of living punk and rock history. Friday gave us the Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop, and I gotta say, Iggy rocks harder at 79, and with multiple physical disabilities, than most everybody else here. And every time I started heading back to GWAR, he’d play another classic, which is why I never got to find out what happened to baby Gor Gor.

Friday set the tone just right, even if it was the only day when everything was stable.

But if Riot Fest proved anything this year, it’s that chaos and instability are where it thrives.

Saturday

Brian Fallon (frontman of one of my favorite bands, the Gaslight Anthem) warmed us up with a half hour of bluesy Millennial Bruce Springsteen rock.

He also gave us the first dig at Morrissey of the day (to paraphrase, “Is he going to show up? Who knows? Who cares?”).

However, as the afternoon went on the rain began, and then the organizers announced that they were closing early due to anticipated thunderstorms. This sucked, but it was the right call—better to be disappointed by missing some shows than zapped by lightning or getting sick from a deluge. The schedule was consolidated so that the headliners could still play, but this meant that acts like Afroman were cut out. (From what I heard, he still got paid—but I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get a contact high while standing in the audience singing along to “Because I Got High.”)

I didn’t catch much of Social Distortion, but I noticed that they played one of their pro-immigrant, anti-racist songs (complete with visuals from the Civil Rights movement) at the Riot Stage, just minutes before Morrissey’s set began next door at the Root Stage—no way that was unintentional, and props to those guys from finding a clever way to make their statement.
Meanwhile—and this might have just been coincidence, but I really hope not—Romani- and Ukrainian-punk band Gogol Bordello played at the same time as Morrissey, and I’d like to think that everyone over at the Rise belting out the words to “Immigraniada”—

—drowned out whatever he was whining about over at the Roots.

(Quick side-rant, but why the fuck was he was this festival? I know there’s layers of arcane complexity to the economics (and politics) of the music industry in regards of who gets to perform (or, in who brings in the money), plus I know that Riot Fest is run by a corporation (there are no good corporations), but for a festival that aims to be inclusive by bringing together people from alt scenes all over the world, and while working hard to get along with the predominately Latine population of Douglass Park, it’s hard to see anything other than dollar-sign eyes here. It’s a slap in the face to what so many attendees and artists stand for, and it’s one of the things that lessens my love for this fest. Acts like him make it feel like this place isn’t as safe for Black and Brown attendees, when they make up a large portion of those attendees. Okay. Side-rant over.)

With the hectic rescheduling—with those bands who were still able to perform doing so three hours earlier—pretty much only one headliner was able to start on time: Tool. They were fantastic, another band who I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. My only con about the set has nothing to do with them, it’s just that this:

—feels like something you should witness at night. Their darkness demands it, but second-best is listening to them perform “Forty Six & 2” as a storm comes rolling in, blackening the sky. Fucking metal.

I tried to catch Bright Eyes, but he started late and I was tired, so I headed out, missing them not for the first time. But as I walked down Albany Avenue to get to the train, I thought I heard the ghostly echo of something acoustic by the Radical stage. So that counts, right?

Sunday

And then the shit(mud)show began.

Starting with a notification in the morning, that due to overnight rains the gates would open three hours late, so that Riot Fest could work on the grounds to “remediate the moistness” (their words). We thought that meant some soggy grass, definitely a lot of rain while waiting to get in line:

But once we finally got in, and once I was running to catch end then of Sincere Engineer (which I did, and they were as phenomenal as always):

—we found ourselves slogging through a quagmire. And with the number of people who cross and recross these fields during all three days, the amount of churned-up earth just kept getting more and more liquefied. Shout out to all the lost shoes. And to the people who would scoop up earthworms and move them out of the way. It got to the point where I gave up trying to walk around until I had a reason to, and just chilled in the Riotoberfest tent smashing down these bad boys:

Finally, it was back to mud-skating through the primordial ooze to see Taking Back Sunday do an album play for Louder Now, to the joy of my sad emo heart:

Some certain bad elements claim that they don’t put on a good show, but I can tell you that it’s worth standing ankle-deep in sludge yelling along to “What’s It Feel Like to Be a Ghost?” “Liar” and “MakeDamnSure” back to back to back.

Then it was off to the Rebel stage for the debut of William Shatner’s metal band: the *Uckers. This one was one-hundred percent for the novelty (and to have something to do while I shoveled down some Harold’s Chicken), because after the opening cover of “Crazy Train” it was off through the muck yet again to get to Alanis Morissette. “You Oughta Know” hits just as hard while dancing next to Lake Trenchfoot—

—as anywhere else, at any other time. This set made me realize that I don’t have nearly enough ’90s alt-rock in my life, so I’m going to do something about that soon.

Then back, through a quarter-mile of gunk in the half-dark, driving through it with countless other people, a lot of whom kept falling down and getting helped back up, in a stretch of time that felt like a scene from Apocalypse Now, if you replaced The Doors with Pierce the Veil, gunfire with breakdowns, and tracer rounds with stage-lights… surreal. “Thank god I’m drunk,” I uttered, each time I nearly lost a shoe, or came this close to falling over.

Insane Clown Posse came in toward the end, packing the area around the Radical with a juggalo freakshow. They put on an interesting set (at least in the half I stuck around for), replacing GWAR’s (fake?) blood with Faygo as they showered the crowd. Say what you will about ICP, but they’re unique… and, honestly, entertaining. At the very least, the creepy carnival aesthetic is fun.

Of course, if you wanted a freakish pastiche of an already freakish band, you could’ve headed over to the Logan Arcade tent to check out their animatronic Insane Clown Puppies:

(Side-note shout-out to Logan Arcade: best games, vibe and beer selection out of all the beercades in Chicago.)

Which rounds out my Riot Fest 2026 weekend. It was a lot of fun, even if it got bogged down in a literal bog. (The fest organizers have their work cut out for them in repairing the park this year—which they’d better do right, because we don’t need Douglass Park so pissed off at us that they don’t let us come back.)
But even a delayed Riot Fest with a chopped-up schedule is still awesome. It’s reinvigorating, getting to rock out with so many other emos, punks, metalheads and weirdos with good music taste. Personally, it’s the finale of my Chicago summer, and I’m already anticipating coming back next year.