Riot Fest 2021 (September 17-19, Chicago IL) Tour • Page 227

People on Reddit are speculating that Fugazi might be on the bill for Thursday. LOL. Anyway.

The Preview Party now has 4pm listed on the Riot Fest web site (previously 5pm) with the details listing gates as TBD. If nothing else, it means they're sorting out logistics behind the scenes.

 

Furthermore, we wait we wait we wait

 

How is that post on Reddit not downvoted into oblivion?! I can’t wait for these people that are convincing themselves that stuff like that is a possibility to get all a dry at Riot Fest when we end up with something like a Larry Arms album play as the headliner. It would make zero sense to have a huge reunion like that on Thursday!

I’ve becomes convinced that they only people that have any idea what they are talking about on there are people that also post here. I mean how else would a schedule that had Thursday playing with MGK get upvoted?

 

FWIW, there are three comments on that Fugazi post. One of them is a person saying they'd want it to happen, another is saying "no way," and then there's me blowing the theory out of the water. Which has 7 upvotes. There's reasonable people on Reddit. They just tend to not be the OPs most of the time. People really need to temper their expectations about what Thursday night will entail. It'll be fun, it'll be cool, and it'll be worth talking about. But it's not going to change lives, hah.

That being said. The interesting thing about that post is what the person is claiming their friend said about Fugazi being in talks with Fun Fun Fun. It means they were down to play, the offer was right, but the ticket price was the hold-up. This means it's in the cards at some point for the right deal with the right festival and... The right ticket price! Who knows what that price would be or how they could make it work but it means it's not a hard "no." Which is something.

 

Wasn’t Fugazi’s whole thing them playing shows for $5? So playing an essentially free pre-show isn’t totally an insane idea…

Mostly kidding here, but there is truth to that assumption I believe, so…

 

Yup. $5. I'm sure whatever deal they were trying to workout with FFF wasn't $5, but it was probably quite a bit lower than what you'd need to make things work. Hah.

Anyway. I don't think the ticket for Thursday is truly "free." The ticket price for the festival still $100+. You just happen to get a "bonus day" if you purchased a ticket before 7/17/20 and could afford to not ask for a refund last year while tons of people were losing their jobs and on unemployment. That still seems pretty exclusionary and the antithesis of something a band so focused on keeping things fair and accessible would be for, no?

But you're right. The best bet any of these festivals have at booking them would be for some sort of "add-on" festival day that was structured a bit differently than the others. It could work at some point, but I don't think it'll be this year and in this format.

 

Corporate sponsorship could be a sticking point too. I feel like I remember Propagandhi (or maybe another similarly political band) only playing some festival because it was a "bonus" day with no corporate sponsors.

 

I was actually trying to include Propagandhi in my post but couldn't figure out how to describe it. That was Montebello Rockfest! They just added a day on Thursday with Propagandhi headlining and 2-3 openers and billed it as "no sponsor night" or whatever. Cool idea.

I could never figure out the Riot Fest sponsorship thing. Most festivals have the names at the bottom of the poster (Lolla has 10 listed this year; everybody from T-Mobile to GrubHub to Venmo to Bud Light Seltzer). Riot doesn't do that. Seems much more subtle and rooted in being a part of the festival experience rather than slapping the name all over the poster and web site.

I'll have to pay more attention to all that stuff this year because now I'm curious.

 

Woah! I had no idea! FFF would’ve been a really great reunion for them, honestly.

Also, to add on, all 4 of the Fugazi dudes are still good friends. They all have different projects with one another too (The Messthetics, and Coriky, and maybe another one in forgetting), so I DO think that maybe a reunion will happen one day, but under the correct circumstances. I mean, I don’t think anyone saw a Jawbox reunion happening, and here we are!

I mean, Riot is far more reasonably priced compared to other festivals, so maybe Riot might get them some day

Yep. Tickets to their shows were usually between $5-$10, because those were the lowest prices which were profitable for the band

Also, trivia: Fugazi was offered to play Lollapalooza in the 90’s (I wanna say 93 or 95) but they declined because Lolla refused to lower ticket prices

 

I had no idea either, and this is all according to the one poster on Reddit. So who knows how true it is. But it sounds legit.

For me, the Fugazi thing has always felt like a more extreme version of the Operation Ivy thing. Everyone gets along. It's just a matter of the right opportunity coming along at the right time. And for both bands? That's probably gonna come from Riot Fest if it's a major festival. The only other one I could see working for Fugazi in the current climate is Psycho Las Vegas (and previously, All Tomorrow's Parties, but I don't think that's a thing anymore).

I just think Fugazi's ticket price bit is a rate-limiting factor that would be very hard to make work financially given the amount of money they would likely want/need to play.

And that was back when nobody really cared, hah! I mean. People cared. But they would have been a mid-day second stage act, for sure.

 

Yeah it’s funny, Fugazi was selling out shows left and right during that period time, but they probably would NOT have gone over well at Lolla

I looked into it, and apparently Lolla wanted them to headline too. It’s funny seeing the headliners that wound up playing instead (AIC and Primus), and how Fugazi never reached the levels they did

Fugazi headlining 95 would’ve made far more sense, but 93 is weird to me

 

I just read that on Wikipedia, which makes me wonder if it was actually a true co-headlining slot versus the way Riot Fest has like, six headliners each day, y'know? I still really think it would have been a second stage thing if anything at all unless my perspective of the popularity of different bands in that era is way off.

Both Primus and Alice in Chains were straight-up hockey arena acts at that point, I think.

 

not riot related, but ETiD finally made an announcement on soooomething, which is their 2 day fest is back on this year! i went ion 2019 and had a marvelous time. no line up yet.

 

This line-up is always stacked! I never go because it's in the middle of December in Buffalo and it just hasn't worked out schedule-wise with everything I have going on that time of year but... It's always fun seeing the poster.

 

Circa Survive announced a mini tour leading up to Riot Fest. Interestingly, no September 16th date…

 

I can't imagine they'd want to do 4 nights in a row. The 16th is probably their rest day.

 

Yeah, this is exactly what I was talking about yesterday. A free day on the 16th doesn't automatically mean that the band will be playing Thursday.

It looks like the 16th is probably just a travel/rest day. Same with Coheed. Open the 16th but there's 2-3 shows ahead of that day (which is the general pattern for that tour).

 

Fair points!

If that’s the case, then it’s probably a safe bet to focus more on bands that are exclusively playing Riot then, with no tour surrounding it

 

Not entirely. Let's say there's a band with a tour. Date in IN on Wednesday and they play Riot on Saturday. Thursday might be a possibility. Or if they are off on Wednesday and Thursday, then doing Riot over the weekend.

I just think if you see a band that has dates on the 14th and 15th, off Thursday, and then Riot on the 17th? It just makes it seem much less likely they'll be a part of Thursday.

It's also worth noting that some bands may just say "fuck it" and play any show offered, regardless of days off. Haha. Especially if it's a shorter set on Thursday. Or an acoustic set or whatever.

 

Arguably a "by the boards" comment, but Laura Jane Grace was on the In Defense of Ska podcast and effectively confirmed that those Operation Ivy/Riot Fest tweets were basically her just fucking around and trying to will it into existence. She wants it to happen with or without the original drummer. "I'm sure eventually Riot Fest will mute me on Twitter because of it. If we get enough people to just tweet at them constantly, we can make this happen... Bring back Operation Ivy and get the energy back to Riot Fest. There's the slogan!"

EDIT: Also, that Rolling Stone article about OpIvy and the LJG tweets were just posted around the same time out of pure coincidence.

But apparently Reade from WATU had heard rumblings about Riot Fest being in talks with them at one point. One of the podcast hosts mentioned reaching out to a friend of theirs who works for Riot about it and the response they got back was "the emoji with eyes and no mouth."

So. There have almost definitely been talks at one point or another.

 

God, I’d love to hear an entire “oral history of Riot Fest” podcast. I’d love to hear the backstories of certain bands they’ve tried to book, and some of the reunions they’ve pulled off. I bet there’s some fantastic stories to be heard from people that work Riot Fest and the bands that have played

I’m genuinely curious to know about other Op Ivy-tier reunions they tried to pull off at one point or another that just didn’t work out. There’s probably tons we don’t know about, or some that could be in the works

 

Yeah, that would be really rad! Alternative Press did a pretty thorough "oral history" series a few years back that covers the major reunions they were able to pull off (Replacements, Misfits, Jawbreaker) as well as a few that they've tried for but weren't able to get (though these were already pretty well-known from interviews with Mike, e.g., Dead Kennedys). It also gets into the decision to move outdoors, some of the growing pains. It's a great read if you have the time.

I'd love a Riot Fest podcast that goes year by year (probably two episodes per year). Talking about the general lay of the land for the year, what sort of things they were considering, any challenges as well as how they put the line-up together - almost line by line.

Obviously, there's certain bands where there's not much of a story (like booking New Found Glory or Bayside). But like, delving into how some of the smaller reunions over the years came about (Cobra Skulls, Slapstick) and how they make decisions to go for bands who aren't active that particular year (No Doubt) or getting bands to play certain albums. Any bands who dropped before line-up announcements. Milestone acts (e.g., the first time they booked a band from a specific genre). That sort of thing would be really cool.

But I also imagine the market for that kind of thing is pretty small. Hah.

 

Who thinks this is a Thursday option? Or too far away in dates?

 

Incredibly unlikely as they aren't on the festival and the other dates on that "tour" aren't happening for months.

 

Fucking LOL. Poor Mike Park.

EDIT: Seriously, though. Good sign that they're ramping up the silly again.