This morning Riot Fest announced the lineup for its 15th year (its eighth outdoors), and the most eye-catching headliner is Bikini Kill. When the iconic riot grrrls announced in January that they were playing a handful of reunion shows, a Chicago date was conspicuously missing—and as other big local festivals announced Bikini Kill-free lineups, it became clear that the band were coming to Riot Fest or not at all. Alas, Bikini Kill are the only top-tier Riot Fest act that includes women. The four others include three returning groups: Rise Against, Blink-182 (making up for last year’s cancellation), and Slayer (who’ve been on a farewell tour since May 2018 and will finally say good-bye to Chicagoland here). The fourth big headliner, the Raconteurs, should satiate Jack White fans.
You could wish for a more consistently spectacular list of headliners, but the rest of the festival’s 89 bookings make up for that. Jawbreaker, who filled the trophy headliner slot at Riot Fest two years ago, show up as high on the bill as the Flaming Lips performing all of 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Nine other acts will play “classic” albums in their entirety, including 2000s UK indie-rock greats Bloc Party (playing Silent Alarm), recently reunited Virginia hardcore group Avail (1998’s Over the James), and Against Me! (both Reinventing Axl Rose and Transgender Dysphoria Blues).
A few of those nine bands playing records in full are also Riot Fest veterans—Taking Back Sunday appear to be obligated to play at least every other year. And while Riot Fest has a reputation for booking many of the same bands year after year (not that it’s disappointing to see Hot Snakes again, of course!), it does also bring aboard new acts too. “New” is relative, of course, though I’m delighted to see Baltimore hardcore band Turnstile debuting at Riot Fest the same year as new wave weirdos the B-52s. The most surprising booking of the festival is probably nostalgia-powered disco group the Village People. Local acts are thin on the ground, unfortunately, and aside from Rise Against and emo daddies American Football, they’re mostly on the lower half of the bill—though it’s great to see postpunks Ganser holding it down for the city.
Riot Fest returns to Douglas Park from Friday, September 13, through Sunday, September 15. Here’s a list of all the acts, with links to previous Reader coverage where relevant. Tickets are on sale now.
Blink-182 Slayer Bikini Kill Raconteurs Rise Against The Flaming Lips performing Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Jawbreaker Ween performing The Mollusk Bloc Party performing Silent Alarm Die Antwoord Patti Smith and her band Taking Back Sunday performing Tell All Your Friends and Louder Now Rancid Violent Femmes Descendents Manchester Orchestra The B-52s Dashboard Confessional performing The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most The Story So Far Avail performing Over the James The Struts Against Me! performing Reinventing Axl Rose and Transgender Dysphoria Blues Pvris Pennywise The Starting Line Cock Sparrer Streetlight Manifesto Anthrax Neck Deep Bob Mould Hot Snakes American Football Guided by Voices Ride Lucero Testament Andrew W.K. Senses Fail performing Let It Enfold You and From the Depths of Dreams The Get Up Kids The Village People Less Than Jake Hot Water Music Glassjaw performing Worship & Tribute Gwar The Selecter performing Too Much Pressure Anti-Flag Nick Lowe with Los Straitjackets Turnover The Damned Things Cursive Turnstile Surfer Blood The Ergs! Save Ferris Frank Iero & the Future Violents White Reaper Grandson H2O I Don’t Know How but They Found Me Hot Mulligan The Hu Teenage Bottlerocket Prof Cherry Glazerr Dave Hause & the Mermaid The Wild Life The Garden Drakulas Dead Swords Can’t Swim Caroline Rose The Beaches Mat Kerekes Angel Dust Microwave Pkew Pkew Pkew Sincere Engineer Skating Polly No Parents Ultra Q Lando Chill Cleopatrick Elder Brother Thin Lips Chaos Chaos Kali Masi Yours Truly Ganser Ramona
