Riot Fest 2024 Tour • Page 160

I’m assuming designating genres to certain stages kept a lot of people from moving around. Whenever the main headliner would start it would be crammed but whenever nofx or the other stage would start it would split. I think it was all planned better. I forgot who said it but they mentioned 50k people being there which is on point for the fest.


Side note, also one of my favorite years. Something was different in the air. It’s like we all needed this break from life. It felt good.

 

Yup. I noticed that as well. It's pretty anecdotal too, but every day I overheard multiple people talking about how they were just going to sit by (insert stage name here).

 

She opened with the Swimming Pool song I know for sure, and then I'm pretty sure Mercenary was in there somewhere too before Paris came out.

 

Also idk how much this would have helped for the food lines and stuff (and also I personally only went to the main food area one time), but there was the publican & taco truck over by Riot Land, plus the convenience store snacks. Maybe helped with the lines a little bit?

They were passing out free tickets left and right at the end of last week, so it definitely wasn't their best year, but that's also happened before.

 

Highlights:
-Fall Out Boy: Their set was honestly probably my favorite time ever seeing them, one of my favorite Riot Fest sets ever, and honestly up there with favorite sets of all time. It helped that I had a great spot (right in front of the sound booth), but it all just landed. Their production was some of the coolest I've seen, not even just at Riot Fest. They really made each album segment feel like the album. And the setlist was about as good as I could have realistically hoped for. Plus I finally got to see Get Busy Living.
-Sum 41: I had such a blast seeing them, especially at the Concord show. Glad I got to catch them a couple last times, and got the best of both worlds with their big fest set and a club show.
-Spiritual Cramp: They really won me over as a pretty casual listener. Really fun way to kick off the festival for me.
-Beach Bunny: not that much to say, but I don't think I've never not been just purely happy watching Beach Bunny live.
-Basement: I was pretty excited to see them already, but they way exceeded my expectations. Got to catch both performances and really the best way I can sum it up is they're all I've really wanted to listen to since the fest ended.
-Pavement: Happy I could finally cross them off the bucket list. They sounded great and played pretty much all the songs I was really wanting to see.
-Laura Jane Grace at Empty Bottle: What a wild time. I wouldn't have minded a couple more Against Me! (or solo) songs thrown in the mix since the OpIvy set was happening at the fest anyway, but it's still impossible to complain about. She was clearly having the time of her life and that energy transferred right into the crowd.
-Tierra Whack: I kind of forgot how much I enjoyed her. She was a great high energy set which I was desperately needing Sunday after the rain and with the weekend starting to catch up to me.

Mixed feelings:
-Waxahatchee: I was pretty bummed out that I had to miss over half her set to see Pavement because of the last minute schedule changes so I missed out on most of the songs I was most excited for (save for Fire and Lilacs which were both incredible), and it did start to border on too sleepy for 8:45 on Saturday night. But that being said she sounded phenomenal and definitely will be a priority for me to catch her next time she's in town.
-Slaughter Beach, Dog: Overall I adored the set, but it was kind of a choice to open with a new song and play a cover. It didn't help that both those songs were super quiet - there was a lot of talking and Mastodon was rocking away right behind them so it was just kind of hard to get into. That being said, the rest of the songs they did were great, and the combo of Engine & 104 Degrees nearly brought me to tears, so overall a win.
-All day Sunday: it wasn't that it was a bad lineup per se, there was a lot I was excited to see, but I was just kind of missing something that I was really stoked on other than Slaughter Beach Dog & Tierra Whack. (And I would say LJG OpIvy but no way the fest was ever going to match the aftershow), so combined with that, my general exhuastion, and the weather I was kind of feeling whatever. Still had a decent time, and Sublime was at least a nice way to end the weekend.
-Riot Land: it was simultaneously cooler and lamer than I was expecting? I like the concept though and especially at night it looked really cool, so overall I think it's a win.

Lows:
-New Found Glory (Disney Covers): not one but TWO Disney covers? I'm not the biggest fan to begin with but I did go to the aftershow and had a pretty good time. I still thought the two covers were corny then, but at least that were part of a lengthy set. Playing two covers and ending 5 minutes early for your 1 hour festival set is borderline inexcusable to me though lol
-Slayer intro video: wtf was that

Biggest surprises:
-Rob Zombie: he kind of rocks huh?
-Basement x2: I knew I was going to enjoy their set I just didn't know they were going to be a weekend highlight
-Oliver Tree: I wanted to be a hater, but I caught a little bit of his set and he actually got me to laugh out loud a couple times, plus the songs sounded pretty fun. Probably not ready to become a super fan just yet, but he's on my radar.
-The Stage Production: was it just me or was the production seriously stepped up this year? It seemed like there was way more going on for almost every band on the main stage, and even a ton on the Rise & Radical stages. Could be I just caught all the flashiest sets, but it was just something I was noticing.


This got a lot longer than I meant, but overall, was another fantastic year. I had a really great time. In terms of both the lineup and the festival experience, I feel like they did a really fantastic job of taking some steps forward without sacrificing the core of the fest's identity (looking at you 2018 lineup). I hope things are truly settled with the city now and going forward they can just focus on making the experience as strong as possible without all the other noise getting in the way.

 

Did anyone else get given like 4 free Ghost Hydrations walking down Ogden at the end of the night? My fridge is stocked!

 

If you, like me, were wondering what the crazy sci-fi instrument St. Vincent played on Saturday was, this is it. Shout out to @Kistler for finding it based on my vague description of a guitar pedal with a mouthpiece.

 

A man died from injuries sustained at the festival this year. This is so sad/tragic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1fvngnf/the_last_photos_taken_from_my_oldest_and_dearest/

 

Fuck, that's awful :(

 

That, the arsoned car, and the other post on Reddit about a missing person really opened my eyes about how common and underreported tragedies probably are at festivals.

we’ve all seen times where the crowd has to shine flashlights on someone and make the “x” with their arms to get security’s attention that they’re not okay. While most of us turn our attention back to the show once that person is attended to, they’re still having a traumatic experience. This man unfortunately had the worst version of that possible.

At riot fest 2022 I went down during MCR and had to get stretchered out. It’s sobering to think that the same thing happened to this man, except instead of people seeing him in time and helping, he got trampled.

with that many people in that kind of environment, I don’t know if there’s a fix that can be implemented to prevent this sort of thing besides “pay attention to what’s happening around you” and “be good to people”.

 

Yeah in 2023 I was in the circle pit for Old Wounds during PUP and lost my balance somehow and went down. I thought I was gonna get trampled but then two people on both sides of me pulled me from fully flat out on the ground to on my feet. I felt like I was ascending into heaven.

I still think back on that and how much worse it could have been. I was already phasing out going into the pit for a lot of shows, save some smaller shows where it is mostly just push moshing, but that kind of sealed it for me on holding off.

 

I've been kinda tracking this via a Facebook group and man, that poor guy and his family. He went missing at the festival so his daughter spent the evening searching for him; finally found him at a hospital after searching for a few days because he didn't have his ID or phone on him; things were starting to look better, then... This.

Fuck, it sucks.

But the one positive thing I can take from this, at least from what I've seen, is that people in the general Riot Fest community were supportive, helpful, and kind. Minimal moments of judgement about his state of sobriety when it happened that were quickly shot down... But people were, by and large, nothing but wanting to help or offer emotional support.

It really, really sucks though. And yeah, I think @Rmourz nailed it: "Be good to people."

 

riot made a statement. seems to be a lot of confusion on if it happened due to a fall near the ferris wheel or in the slayer pit. riot is saying its the ferris wheel incident

 

I'm wondering if these are two different events and the stories are being confused.

But it is in RF's interest to say that it was not because he collapsed in the crowd and was injured by others. The fact that the RF community is now effectively calling that family a bunch of liars while also stating that this is an example of how misinformation spreads really need to take a long look in the mirror as the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle and they're not helping.

 

Whenever I go to Riot Fest, I bring a proper flashlight both because the field is so damn dark and if I have to help someone during the night. I've carried people out of crowds at RF before, did it during MCR as well when a woman was struggling to carry her much larger partner out after he collapsed. Thankfully I had my flashlight out and immediately started flashing it while carrying him out so people cleared out of the way.

 

Yeah, somewhere along the line I lost track of who exactly was posting about him on Facebook and Reddit, but it does seem like there are two different events.

 

its not the family, its a friend who says he was with him up until slayer posting all over reddit, ive only seen the family posting on the FB group and its not about 'how' but more that he did infact pass away. but yeah, anyone (who isnt close to the victim) making claims with certainty in any direction is full of shit at the moment. i could maybe see riot fest getting 2 situations confused with each other especially since it sounds like at least one of the guys didnt have ID so he was a john doe for a minute, but i dont see why they would out right lie as a way to cover their ass, especially since that seems like it could become an easily disprovable lie.

like if riot is saying "no not the slayer pit, it was the ferris wheel guy who died" but it WAS the slayer pit guy who died.. seems pretty likely that the ferris wheel guy could be like "no, i got hurt but im not dead" or medical/poilce report, or some video that caught either of the situations comes out... they would be really stupid to bold face lie about something like that. this is a 'let the facts come out before the pitchforks" situation