Riot Fest 2021 (September 17-19, Chicago IL) Tour • Page 238

Yeah the gates at both sides of the outfield. You could always call to make sure because I don’t know if they’ve changed it. When I saw foo one night I went in on one side the other night I went in on the opposite

 

Wild that we're just over a month out. I know things are feeling a little "iffy" at this point, but I'm still feeling like it'll happen unless things get exponentially worse over the next few weeks. But I've also resigned myself to the fact that I'll probably feel weird about it until I'm there in the park, rocking my Larry Arms mask, and the first band I really want to see hits the stage.

I had a few other thoughts today about some of the stuff we're "waiting" for:

More aftershows: They've announced 8 this year. In 2019, excluding the Thursday show with the Aquabats... There were 13 shows. I suspect, if anything, they have 2-3 more up their sleeve. Probably at Cobra Lounge or Bottom Lounge. But they might also have opted out of booking (or announcing what was previously booked) considering the uptick in cases with the delta variant.

Thursday announcement: People keep saying there won't be an announcement. But the Twitter account has said otherwise...

 

I know the Delta situation is iffy, but you think they would’ve announced more things by now, to keep the momentum of single-day tickets moving

 

Theoretically, right? I'm just not sure what more there is to announce at the moment beyond potential aftershows. The schedule doesn't usually come out until much closer to the festival and I'd imagine they'll want to wait until at least the usual time before doing that as there's likely to be some bands dropped/added.

This time of year is also usually a dead zone anyway, with the festival not sold out. So this isn't too different than most other years except for the fact that they told us more news would be coming. But I can totally see how the aftershows could have changed. And announcing Thursday stuff wouldn't help sell tickets.

So I'm not reading into it all too much beyond them just slowing their roll a bit with aftershows to feel out the situation a bit more. But I really do not see them cancelling unless things get way worse with regard to hospitalizations and/or there's a government mandate (which could happen). Most things being cancelled at this point are in areas where COVID is on a major uptick. Not just rising, but straight-up hot spots.

 

Riot should have gotten this as an album play

 

A few days after Riot, for anyone interested

 

Fuck, that would have been amazing! I was stoked they were doing it at Fest, now I'm even more excited that I get to see it twice (Boston date).

I feel like this would be weirdly small for a Riot Fest album play, though. CiS is a popular band and I fucking love this record, but they're also still pretty niche at the end of the day. Would have been a sweet late afternoon set on Rebel.

 

was wearing my 2017 riot shirt, and started to think, are 2017 and 2021 the most crossover of any 2 riots? i count 17 repeats. even crazier is most of them are from the upper half of the card - there is a run on the 2017 poster on third and fourth lines where 6 out of 8 bands are repeats (gogol through NFG... only tv on the radio and ministry not repeating). This isnt a judgment as we all know booking was probably a rough one, but just needed something riot related to talk about, haha

the 17 for those curious: NIN, gogol, TBS, dirty heads, vic mensa, dino jr, NFG, larry arms, bosstones, bayside, mayday parade, best coast, gwar. AWK, fishbone, 4 year strong, skatting polly.

last fun fact is10 out of the 17 repeats are on saturday's line up this year (4 friday, 3 sunday)

 

Interesting! Yeah, I noticed there are a handful of repeats from 2015 too. Definitely a weird year

 

That's a lot more crossover than usual. And so high up on the poster too...

But I also feel like most of those acts have consistently played the festival over the years and are generally in the "legacy act" category. Hard to describe what I'm getting at, but it's sorta like "Yeah, of course those are the acts that play festival like Riot Fest every 2-3 years."

 

I made this back in May when the first part of the line-up was announced and marked the repeated bands from 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016, I also noticed some from 2015 but I thought it was too much to mark them. Now with your comment Im curious on doing it again with the full line-up to see how many bands from the added are repeating

 

Yesss I'm stoked for this

 

So I made this real quick, probably missing some bands. I was only counting Riot Fest Chicago. Bands that played multiple times I only counted the last year they performed.
Purple is 2019. Yellow 2018. Red 2017. Green 2016 and Orange 2015.

There are some bands like Circa Survive, Pixies, Sublime With Rome and Radkey that played 2014/2013, but I didnt marked them.

 

Yeah this festival is pretty bad about repeating acts (that aren’t named Taking Back Sunday, GWAR, or Andrew W.K.)

It would be nice for them to get more fresh blood in there and have the repeats happen after say, only after 5 years or something. It’s still a fun time, just one issue they do have.

 

I feel like there are a million indie punk/punk/ska/emo acts that have never played that could fill up the undercard and be “new” and “fresh”.

 

Almost all the bands from the pop punk stages form 2017 are repeating now that I think about it

 

There are a bunch of acts that haven’t played in a while that would be nice to see on the lineups again. Lots of the bands from 2014 haven’t showed up again, which is surprising to me

There are still a bunch of Riot-esque bands in the punk/ska that have still never played before, which is pretty surprising to me. And I mean, we’ve discussed that before

 

Im still waiting for Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger to play

 

Add MxPx and Strung Out* to that list too

I think they played Denver 2014, but my post still stands

 

Catbite and We Are The Union please

 

Riot should lead the ska revival, tbh. Ska is booming again

 

To be honest, I think the biggest issue with punk/emo/ska/hardcore is that most of the older bands are still touring and still draw pretty well.

This complicates things on both ends. On the one hand, you have acts like NOFX or Bad Religion picking up slots at the top of the bill that might otherwise go to acts like, say, the Menzingers or Pup (or even to some of their slightly less popular peers like Less Than Jake). Maybe not right where they would be. But I bet you'd see the Menzingers or Pup headlining a stage or second to last on one without bands like that on the bill.

On the other hand, for some of the middling acts? It's potentially more profitable/less work for them to do their own headlining show in a city (MxPx, Reel Big Fish being great examples of this). And really, what do they gain from doing Riot Fest if it's all a bunch of people there to see the old punk bands, anyway? You're just preaching to the converted with minimal impact on new fans.

This is all to say that I fully agree with everyone. And I think the "perception breeds reality" theory is very true with festivals. If Riot big-ups a smaller act or gives a later slot to a younger band? They can get higher placement on other festivals, people will perceive them to be that level on the schedule popular... And it has strong potential to cause their stock to rise. Maybe not instantly, but over time.

And if you push for bands like the Menzingers or Pup to become headliners that leaves room to boost other bands up and maybe book "baby bands" from that same genre to support.

TBH, I think Fest in Gainesville does a really, really good job at doing this with the bands they tend to book on the regular.

 

Have you both heard the new Catbite album? It is fucking wall-to-wall bangers! I really hope they play next year. Seeing Riot RT about them not once, but twice, made my heart real happy.

My ideal "ska" set-up for Riot would be on the Rebel stage. Headlined by Less Than Jake or Mustard Plug. With Big D and the Kids Table, We Are the Union, Kill Lincoln, Catbite, and Bad Operation or Joystick. This would obviously include a Skatune Network aftershow with Catbite and a local opener.

Only issue would be that I wouldn't want to leave that stage all day. Hah.

 

The new Catbite album freaking rules!

 

I haven't! I’ll have to check it out!