Riot Fest 2021 (September 17-19, Chicago IL) Tour • Page 128

@alkalinexandy I'm not the person who mentioned this on Reddit but I saw your reply lol

Pretty sure they were just trolling as this was back in April a bit after the MCR postponement

 

Starting to get really amped about the line-up. Any final guesses as to when the line-up is actually gonna drop?

I'm gonna buck the wagon and say that social media will be quiet until tomorrow afternoon, at which point we get a teaser that indicates who one of the new headliners is (and it'll be worthy of such a teaser). And a time on Tuesday that the full line-up will be dropping.

I'm also anticipating that we see the full line-up not deviate too much from previous years in terms of content. There's going to be some wildcards (not in terms of genre--but artists we don't see coming/wouldn't immediately think of) and plenty of punk and hardcore leaning acts to round things out.

I took a look at all of the old posters over the weekend and the festival has been pretty consistent in what they bring to the table for nine years. I see no reason they would shift drastically now.

 

"I see no reason they would shift drastically now."

*books MGK*

Mhm, sure. Haha.

 

I'm not sure either. But I do. Mostly because there's occasionally a fun idea/prediction that might come true.

Somebody brought up a really great point about that subreddit the other day. Riot Fest has increased in popularity over the last few years, as have festivals in general. So those threads are now pretty flooded with people who don't "get" the Riot Fest sub-culture... As opposed to this thread, where people get pretty nerdy about this one specific festival, or a handful of fests, but it's more about the music at each and not just about "festival culture." So there's a better grasp on what is realistic.

HAH! Yes, this is definitely trolling. But thanks! Good looks. Haha.

 

After reflecting on it: I wouldn't really call that a drastic shift. Assuming it's just one artist. If they booked 5-6 other artists in that same category? Yeah, that'd be a big shift. And one I think would be a really uncomfortable look in hindsight.

But if it's just MGK in the slot people are leaning heavily toward him being in (2nd or 3rd line)? I dunno. That's not much different than booking Father John Misty a few years back. Or Twin Peaks. Or Rob Zombie. Not entirely the same thing, but all artists that aren't typical Riot Fest fare. I think he would be the most glaring just because his name is all over the place right now, but still...

They always switch it up with artists and try new things, but the core has been pretty consistent if you look at all of the line-ups since 2012.

 

Are we getting the full lineup this month, or is this just the second of three waves?

 

Full lineup!

 

i think its the final full lineup

 

I read "full lineup" and the tweet was taking too long to load. I had a mini heart attack

 

I don’t care nearly as strong about her playing. But I am so tired of people in Reddit saying they want her to be booked as “the meme act”. Those people just show a gross misunderstanding of Riot Fest and their thinking. Maybe Reddit has turned some acts into “memes” but I don’t think Riot Fest looked at them that way. They have all been legendary acts that while maybe surprising or out there for riot fest still fit in with the overall feel or ethos of the festival. Carley Rae Jepson does not match that description. My choice for that slot is still Weird Al, especially if Devo plays because I feel like they would go together really well on a stage.

 

Yeah weird Al still sticks out to me as possible from an interview Riot Mike made Wayback about booking an artist that “only books far in advance” because even pre-pandemic doesn’t he like to announce a tour almost a year ahead of time?

 

Just for the hell of it, here is my wishlist just off the top of my head this morning:


Misfits
MxPx
Gorilla Biscuits
ALL
Descendents (Everything Sucks album play)
Devo
Weird Al
Good Riddance
The Distillers
Lunachicks
Lucky Boys Confusion (Throwing the Game album play)
Alkaline Trio (From Here to Infirmary album play)
Sum 41 (All Killer No Filler album play)
Sugarcult (Start Static album play)
Goldfinger
AFI
Pulley

 

Yeah, Al announces way early and I had a feeling it was him when I read that interview line too. (As did many others!)

Hard to tell what level of impact the pandemic would have had on him (or whoever the artist in question was!) potentially playing. But unfortunately, I feel like for him, it may have led to a cancellation or a postponement. I just don't see him doing a single, one-off show. He tends to do large scale tours or nothing.

Solid list! The Misfits, Gorilla Biscuits, Weird Al, Descendents/All, Alkaline Trio, Good Riddance, Pulley, and A.F.I. are all pretty high up on my list too! The Distillers, Lunachicks, and/or Goldfinger would all be cool too.

Sugarcult would be on my list, but unless anything has changed last I heard they didn't plan on doing any shows this year. (And things may have changed!)

 

Ah, I hadn’t hear that about Sugarcult. And obviously I was trying to keep that list as realistic as possible. So I’ll take them off and add Strike Anywhere and the Lawrence Arms.

 

Yeah, Marko did the Talking Records podcast and talked about the album's recording, marketing, placement in Van Wilder, etc. He basically said that getting the band together to do anything was always a struggle because everybody's so busy and that they had no current plans for 2020 in terms of playing shows. That podcast was released on April 13th. Obviously, things can change, and maybe he was just being cagey but it felt legit.

The Lawrence Ams are probably my #1 "currently active" band that I'd love to see added to the festival! There is no band I listened to more throughout the pandemic to help me get through it than them and I've been dying to see some of those Skeleton Coast songs live.

 

Well I will keep my fingers crossed but won’t be expecting it though. I feel like The Lawrence Arms have to be playing. They haven’t played since 2017 which makes them feel overdue already. Plus they are playing both The Fest and PRB so I don’t see why they wouldn’t also play their hometown festival that they have a long history with.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty convinced they're playing. With a new album out, being more popular than ever, and having not played in a few years it feels almost required that they play. Haha.

And it would also almost make sense to play Riot as a "warm-up" for those other festivals. I could totally see them doing an after show on Friday night (as "practice") and playing Riot Fest on Saturday or Sunday.

 

Any chance The Dirty Nil is playing? Also hoping Spanish Love Songs is playing as well.

 

For whatever reason, they haven't popped into my head as an option but... They've been pretty busy throughout the pandemic with livestreams and such. So I don't see why not!

They don't have any tour dates beyond a livestream coming up in the next few days but I'd think that makes them a possibility, TBH! They'd be a really sick addition!

That new album is a strong contender for my AOTY thus far.

 

and if they really want to get warmed up they could do an album Play or something on Thursday. I feel like Riot Fest connected shows are the only time they are willing to do that. Obviously they played Oh Calcutta at the fest, but they had also played The Greatest Story Ever Told at a Dead Milkmen /Larry Arms show that was put on by Riot Fest. That was a total shock because it hadn’t been announced that they were doing that before hand.

Edit: And when they played The Greatest Story it wasn’t an anniversary for the album, so I don’t think they care about that.

 

I've been thinking more about the Thursday night party and the kind of sets bands might do. The Lawrence Arms are the kind of band who know their songs pretty intimately and can generally pull most of them out of their hats at any point in time with minimal practice (and fans are forgiving of fuck-ups with them, anyway haha). So yeah, I think that's entirely plausible! But only because they know the songs already. And The Greatest Story would definitely be a "bucket list" performance for me!

As far as the other Thursday bands go, though, I just straight-up don't see most bands putting the time/energy into learning an album for a set that will be done to a limited number of people. So if there's any album plays, it will probably be bands who know the albums really well anyway. I would also put New Found Glory into that category, but at this point them doing an album play is far from "bragging right's" territory unless it were that ISHC EP.

 

Yeah, there are little more bragging rights to seeing a band like The Larry Arms do an album since they have never done a tour doing that and I think Brendan is pretty opposed to doing a whole tour like that compared to something like TBS playing all of Tell All Your Friends for the millionth time.

 

Would love to see SLS. Brave Faces Everyone practically got me through the pandemic.

 

For sure! And the Larry Arms are poised to do it for most of their albums, I think. I could honestly see them wanting to do Skeleton Coast just to test what songs actually play well live. Wouldn't quite feel so "iconic," but I bet some people would be really stoked. That album did really well for them this past year.

And I honestly think that's what we see some of that night. A few well-known bands doing a low-key set to dust off the cob webs. Like, if the Offspring get added to the festival I could see them doing a short, "no frills" set of older tracks just to get some practice in after not playing live for like, 1.5 years, y'know? That would be a pretty unique experience.

It's not going to be a lot of album plays. It'll be more like, bands doing what they usually do in a more low-key way or doing something that's relatively easy for them to do but completely different than the norm (cover sets are an example of this). Like, Bayside pulling out all those NOFX covers they did years ago at Bamboozle or whatever.

 

I think Spanish Love Songs will definitely be on the bill. Dylan had said they're looking to book things outdoors for September. And from a "would I expect them to be playing Riot Fest given the buzz?" perspective they are definitely at the top of the list of potentials.