Chicago, IL – 16 Sep 2023
editor’s note – in a sign that we are not really out of this yet, the Gordons caught the COVID bug at some point, which has been the cause of delay in Jim’s coverage of Days 2 and 3. Health is more important than TGEFM, so he took the time to recover before getting back to the fest reviews.
Day Two:
Full disclosure. We were talking about skipping day two. If you are a fan of any day two band, please don’t freak out. Day two was just a miss for us. Some people really do like brussels sprouts. In the interest of a complete article for TGEFM, we decided to soldier on.
I suppose this is as good a time as any to bring up the concept of “T-shirt cred.” My wife and I have sort of an unspoken competition to get some T-shirt shout outs at Riot Fest. You see all kinds of tees at RF. 90% of them are bands and 10% of those are bands playing the show. At day 2 of Riot Fest, a lot of folks were sporting Sleep Token shirts. A TON OF PEOPLE were wearing Insane Clown Posse shirts. Safe to say the Juggalos showed up in force sporting their signature face paint and shouting “Whoop Whoop” to each other. My favorite shirt of the fest: “Surely not everyone was Kung Fu Fighting.” I had a secret tee weapon that I have been saving for a few years, and I decided to bust it out this year: an old school Taco Bell logo shirt. I knew it would make a statement, but I didn’t think I’d be getting shout outs. I did. In fact, one fan felt compelled to come over and get a picture with me. I’m guessing that guy doesn’t get out much. Without a doubt, the most ubiquitous shirt at the festival was the CBGB shirt that was reprinted by some major chain, was it Walmart? You can’t buy instant cred from Walmart folks, you have to dig a little deeper.
We ran into a little traffic headed in and unfortunately missed Drain and Snapcase. Corey Feldman showcased his current project on the Rebel stage as we entered. We caught the action as we filled our water bottles. I’m told he had a wardrobe change after every song. He must have been living his best life. Next, we caught Rival Schools on the Radicals stage. They helped round out the emo faction that the lineup sorely lacked this year. As Saves The Day, Motion City Soundtrack, Alkaline Trio, Lawrence Arms, Senses Fail, or all of the above, would really have helped fill Saturday out.
Speaking of not emo, White Reaper brought some heat over on the Riot Stage, so we set up shop over there. I had no idea that they had two lead singers. The one that sings the hits, and then the other guy. “Might be Right” stood out in their set. Next, Enter Shikari dropped some riffage at the Rise Stage. I think you can classify ES as screamo, but they hail from England which threw me off. Speaking of shirt cred, the singer sported a hoodie with a giant pic of Marvin Gaye emblazoned across the front. Solid. Ended up at the Riot Stage for a good portion of Head Automatica‘s set. I had these guys circled because the singer is from Glassjaw and they ripped it up at Riot Fest a few years back. I have to say that HA put on a solid show and sounded really tight. I’d love to catch them in a smaller venue like Metro where their sound can fill up the space. Some friends were over watching Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls. I snuck away to look for them and partook of some FT. Frank Turner reminds me of a folky mash-up of The Clash and The Replacements. On paper, that sounds kind of awesome, I just was not into the folk stuff this weekend, don’t get me started on Ani DiFranco. Death Grips popped on right after HA, so we stayed around to catch their vibe. They remind me of the soundtrack for Judgment Night, but a band. The backing band brings the rock, almost like Rage Against the Machine, while their frontman Stefan Burnett (MC Ride) turns up the angst to 100. I’ll be adding them to my spotify library for sure.
One of my Saturday faves came up next on the Radicals stage, PUP. They had their typical push and pull kind of set, they set you up bringing the wispy Emo feels and then drop a punk banger that makes you want to hit the pit. Wish we would have hung out longer but we had to make a run to the port-o-potties. As we took care of our business, Eshu Tune provided the musical backdrop on the Rebel stage. I think ET is local as Riot Fest is trying to develop a relationship in the community. Their backing band definitely rocked, the raps they laid down tended to the simplistic, as evidenced by their closer, “I Lift Weights.”
100 Gecs, the kind of music that makes your grandfather yell at the radio, “Turn off that damn noise!!” I got a chance to see what the fuss was about. They sound like a Nintendo 64 hotwired with a hair dryer. Throw some auto-tuned vocals on top of that and turn it up to 11. For some reason they made me want to get on a treadmill. Death Cab for Cutie played a great set at Riot Fest in 2016, this time around they elected to do an album play, Transatlanticism. Heard a rumor that Riot Fest wanted DCFC and The Postal Service to play back to back on the same stage, but Ben Gibbard wanted to break the sets up. He referred to the unintended outcome of bracketing Queens of the Stone Age as a “Boulder Sandwich.” As we made our way to Rebel, we caught Pennywise playing “Bro Hymn” that was a fortuitous moment. Even more fortuitous, and perhaps the savior of my Saturday, Sleep Token took the stage right as we arrived. I didn’t know much about ST going into RF, other than they were some kind of metal band that was getting a lot of buzz. I’ve heard them compared to Ghost and Slipknot, likely because they wear costumes and have a theatrical stage presence. If you like Metal, Emo, Screamo, Techno, R&B, and Funk; then Sleep Token will fulfill your wildest dreams. They bring all those genres together, not only in the same band, but often the same song! Their stage presence brings to mind if The Sith had a band and Studio Ghibli designed their costumes. Do yourself a favor and give them a listen.
After Sleep Token ushered in the darkness, things got a bit chaotic. We tried to check out some of Queens of the Stoneage, but got separated. After about a half hour of texting and searching, our group reformed. Wasn’t there an old ABC after-school special called, “My child became a Juggalo.” It told the harrowing tale of a teenager whacked out on Faygo, painting their face, and following the Insane Clown Posse from town to town. Well, my wife and I lived through something like that, so we did our best to assist our little juggalo in getting her Faygo fix during ICP. I think if the organizers of RF had it to do over again, they would have put ICP on a bigger stage. The juggalos come out in force and getting anywhere near the rebel stage during their set proved impossible. People were backed up into the port-o-potty area just to catch a glimpse. We hung around in the ether between the Rebel and Rise stage, in this region ICP melded with Mr. Bungle, forming a cacophonous alliance. It didn’t take long for our little Juggalo to be expelled from the madness and return to us only slightly dripping in Faygo. We decided to call it a night and let ICP serenade us on our trip to the car.
