Punks, parties, and Patti: The highs and lows of Riot Fest 2021

A host of great musicians, from Beach Bunny to The Flaming Lips, made this year's return of Riot Fest a memorable one

By Alex McLevy | September 20, 2021 | 4:09pm

Aux Features Riot Fest

Punks, parties, and Patti: The highs and lows of Riot Fest 2021

Fishbone’s Angelo Moore, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, and Rancid’s Tim Armstrong (Photos: Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images)

After a year off, Riot Fest has returned, and if anything, the three-day (four, if you count the bonus Thursday “preview” lineup that basically just became the unofficial Day One) punk-themed music festival seemed intent on proving it was more like itself than ever before. In other words, more nostalgia for years gone by, more retro styles and set lists, and more comforting performances from Riot Fest stalwarts, back again to reassure audiences that the show will go on, after a year when it very much did not. Sure, there were some new faces as always (more on that below), but even many of the further-down-the-bill names were returning acts whose performances felt as much like a reunion as any of the big names playing a full-album anniversary set. But the fun is the point—and after an extended weekend of ear-splitting music, there were plenty of memorable moments to mark the occasion of Riot Fest’s return.

Highest setting of the bar

Is there anyone else on Earth who can elicit a roar of excitement from a festival crowd just by taking a sip of tea? Despite our frustration at arriving too late to see the very beginning of her set, thanks to a CTA train error (it’s a real FOMO incident when you’re still several blocks away from the fest and you hear the opening chords of “People Have The Power” ringing out), ’s set more than compensated for our delayed entry. At first, it seemed as though Smith was in a typically defiant mood, but her gratitude at the ability to perform again quickly shown through via a performance of, well, “Grateful.” As with her last Riot Fest appearance, Smith ran through a mix of her originals and cover songs, with a medley ending on “Gloria” to close things out. She shouted out the ability to persevere through pandemics of both the viral and environmental—sentiments expressed by a lot of bands this weekend, but when you have the goosebump-inducing cache of an unsentimental artist like Smith, it means just a little bit more.

Best full-album performance

Count a start-to-finish performance of The Reality Of My Surroundings by punk-funk masters among the experiences this writer never thought they’d get to witness. But what a terrific performance it was, as the band tore through an inspired rendition of its sprawling 1991 magnum opus (including all four “If I Were A… I’d” interstitials) with verve and its signature showmanship. Sure, there may not be as many onstage antics as during the group’s heyday (anyone who saw them in the ’90s—or has seen footage of it—knows the band used to throw off enough energy to power a small city), but for a group of guys playing three decades later, they kept pace with just about any other act in the lineup.

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Most ignoble viewing situation

Before Beach Bunny’s Friday set, the weather threatened to once again fuck up Riot Fest: Along with tiny spits of rain, several bright flashes of lightning provoked widespread cries of “noooo” amongst experienced Riot Fest attendees all too familiar with storm clouds canceling sets. But while the lightning never materialized any closer, the rain did, and soon this writer was standing inside a porta john to avoid getting drenched, and watching the first 20-some minutes of Beach Bunny through the narrow slats in the side of the facility. Thankfully, the rain eventually ended and we were able to catch the rest of the band’s ebullient and engaging performance from the back of the crowd, but the memory of that ignoble viewing situation won’t soon fade.

Requisite “we’re old” joke

It didn’t take long. Just five songs into The Smashing Pumpkins’ Friday-night set, frontman/Svengali Billy Corgan delivered the now-standard joke of long-in-the-tooth Riot Fest acts: “We’re going way back to the beginning for this next one,” Corgan said by way of introduction for “Drown,” off the Singles soundtrack. “1991. Before most of you were born. You may have heard about that time.” Cue the rimshot. With the exception of some cuts from the group’s more recent reunion albums (including set-opener “Cyr”), the band played the hits—and the crowd could not have been happier about it, whether they were alive when the songs were first released or not.

Best example of going the extra mile

Anyone who has seen a show knows singer Tim Harrington’s penchant for giving an audience their money’s worth. And on Saturday afternoon he was in fine form: Storming out among the crowd (while stage crew frantically tried to hold the mic cord aloft, lest it be lost forever), wrapping stage tape around his head while confessing to an HPV diagnosis, taking hits from a joint proffered by a random audience member—it all helped ease our sadness at a train malfunction causing this writer to arrive too late to catch early Saturday afternoon. Instead, we got to enjoy the spectacle of Harrington repeatedly slipping awkwardly over the stage barricade while his band’s furious angular indie rock pummeled the speakers. “I’m slippery—like an eel,” he boasted, as the sweat and glitter radiating off his body stymied security’s efforts to help him back onstage. Good times.

Best post-punk provocation

There’s no better demonstration of how tame Riot Fest really is than when a defiantly artistically challenging group takes the stage, because the crowd is inevitably tiny for the first few songs, as the festival attendees tend to need coaxing into checking out any band they haven’t already heard on the radio. (Would honestly not be surprised if Hootie And The Blowfish are headlining in a few years—the crowd would love them.) But Chicago band Ganser was more than up to the challenge, as the group’s idiosyncratic fusion of Sonic Youth-esque guitar squalls and stuttering post-punk beats straight from an ’80s UK house party slowly won over everyone within 100 yards of the stage, until by the closing number, even the people hiding in the shady area on the distant hill were clapping for more.

Most predictable set (and that’s okay)

know what the people want and they’re going to deliver it, damn it. If you’ve seen the band perform at the fest in years past, you know what to expect: About 10 songs from the group’s biggest record, 1995’s …And Out Come The Wolves, as well as a few from Let’s Go, mixed with a smattering of tracks from later records. You can set your watch by the dependability of Rancid’s setlist, but given the nostalgia which occasionally feels like Riot Fest’s raison d’être, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Are you ready to party?!?! (Andrew W.K. is)

It almost seemed like Andrew W.K. was testing the audience, to see who was truly ready to party. Kicking off with two of the more straight-up heavy metal tracks from new album , some of the audience foolishly departed, thinking the iconic rocker was going to stick to the less hortatory material. Foolish fair-weather listeners; Andrew W.K. can’t be held back from partying for long. Soon enough, anthemic crowd-pleasers like “You Will Remember Tonight” and “She Is Beautiful” were issuing forth from the stage, while W.K. head-banged and gave continuous thumbs-ups and “good job!”s to audience and band members alright. Consider the night remembered.

Most unexpected delight

It’s rare that a band can stop this writer in their tracks, especially on the way to see another act (in this case, HEALTH, whose goth-y, industrial-inflected space rock made a surprisingly good fit for a sunny festival afternoon). But such was the case with Blackstarkids, whose enthusiastic mix of old-school hip-hop flows and pre-fame Black Eyed Peas pop uplift was so infectiously appealing—and the youthful act’s irrepressible energy and cheerful attitude so endearing—that, like many in the audience, we found ourselves rooted to the spot, cheering for more. By the time the group closed on a stylistically left-field but wonderfully anthemic rocker (honestly, it was like discovering “Hey Ya!” in the middle of The Love Below for the first time), everyone, it seemed, was thoroughly won over. They’re rough around the unpolished edges (they cheerfully admitted it was their first-ever festival performance), but there are diamonds lurking inside.

Best way to unite an entire Riot Fest crowd

Having five stages, with up to four different acts playing at any one time means that the Riot Fest crowd is usually fairly well dispersed among the fairgrounds. But for a brief moment on Sunday, it seemed as though all eyes were squarely on . The famously subversive band took to the stage with a sharp video updating a 40-year-old gimmick in which a record producer excoriates them for not knowing how to write a hit—then proceeded to demonstrate how they had done exactly that, over and over, with songs that people are still singing and stutter-dancing to decades later. And the roar of recognition that greeted “Whip It” was proof that devolution is still real, so thank god Devo is here to soundtrack it.

Most triumphant hometown return

It takes a lot to pull you away from Devo. (Riot Fest’s overlapping set times can create painful choices.) But longtime A.V. Club favorites are one of the few that can pull it off. Making a 14-hour drive from upstate New York just to play this show, only to then turn right around and head back out of state again (they’re currently on tour with Wild Pink), Ratboys’ Sunday night set on the Rebel Stage felt like a giant homecoming party, with a boisterous hometown crowd that couldn’t have been happier to see the indie-rock outfit barrel through a feel-good collection of tracks, just as the sun was setting.

Most notable mellowing of mood

While The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne may have inspired good vibes with his opening exhortation for everyone to “take care of each other” (followed quickly by repeated encouragements to the audience to scream “Fuck, yeah!”), the band’s set may not have made for the most cathartic of performances. A mellow tone, approaching somnambulent, slowly dulled responses, with the band’s dreamy soundscapes seeming to miss the mark of connecting with the Sunday-night crowd. (At least “Do You Realize?” still sounded great.) And while Slipknot and Machine Gun Kelly were still to come, that sleepy vibe inspired The A.V. Club to call it a weekend. Four days is an awful lot of music from noon to night, and those of us who were here for the whole thing were slightly worse for wear by the end of it. As one guy sardonically murmured as we all got ready to board the CTA train at the end of the night, prompting cathartic giggles from everyone on the platform: “Let’s make it five days next year.”