Bad Copy

Every year Riot Fest marks the end of summer for me. It’s a time when the temperatures start to cool, the night are crisp and clear, and you can feel the fall in the air. Except this year… it’s been 90* for most of summer, it’s still hot at night, and it’s rained practically every day since the snow melted. Either way, Riot Fest weekend arrived and we were ready for it.

Despite this being only an annual event, photographer Mat and I have fallen into a routine that’s easy to slip back into each year. I pick him up Friday morning on the way to the festival. We grab ourselves a decent, but most importantly free parking space in an area that we have dubbed “secret parking” for years, and we lug all our Bad Copy crap to check-in, then through security, and over to the press area where we meet up with Curtis and Matt from Broke Ass Stuart (Matt also shoots for Bad Copy; he’s the best!), Jackie from Chorus FM/In the Key of Change, and all the other press pals both old and new.

Like most years, while the general public is chattering about the headliners and how stoked they are about whatever band getting back together, I’m always most excited about the bands whose names are smallest on the poster. Almost There But Not Really and Panic Shack were the first two sets of the day that I caught. In fact, Panic Shack was playing as Mat and I made our way into the festival grounds and I stopped dead in my tracks; they were so good! They’re a Welsh band who has been touring around with The Sex Pistols on their 2026 North American tour. I’m not hip to all the ins and out of the booking world, but since the Pistols were on Riot this year, it seems like that’s why we were graced with Panic Shack. Either way, new favorite band fodder for sure. Almost There But Not Really are hometown heroes from the Southside of the city. They play Latine shoegaze that’s sad and dreamy but also really powerful. They were also our very first Bad Libs of the day and the weekend.

Speaking of Bad Libs, we know that each year of Riot Fest is different… regarding the lineup, the weather, and press options. I always reach out to every single band that even kind of fits our big tent asking if they want to play along in lieu of a serious interview and have a little Mad Libs style fun instead. I’m almost always told that the big bands don’t have time for press, and some years the smaller bands only want very serious interviews. But this year, SO many bands decided they wanted to have fun with us! Today, I had 5 rounds of Libs planned. 12 more tomorrow, and 4 for day 3. Insane!

The gruesome space-based monsters from GWAR entered the press area at 2PM on the dot and I was paired up with Blothar the Berzerker. I absolutely love the fact that they are always down for Bad Libs every single year they play. And it’s always fun, just like their set. Their word choices are gross and silly and I find myself cracking up the whole time. This year’s Bad Libs was no different.

I snuck out of the press tent and caught a little of Greet Death from Michigan as they we would be meeting later to do some Libs. I also caught a tiny bit of The Paradox’s set (Bad Libs alumni circa 2025). I was crushed to miss Bratmobile and Mariachi El Bronx due to my press schedule, but meeting and hanging out with all of Foxy Shazam was totally worth it. They had me and everyone around us cracking up.

With my Bad Lib schedule accomplished for the day, I was able to finally venture out into the crowd and catch some bands. I wandered over to see Motion City Soundtrack on the Rebel stage. Their set was a solid juggling of newer and older songs. Of course, “My Favorite Accident” graced the early part of the setlist. They played a few tracks off their 2025 release The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World. And ended with a solid block of “LGFUAD,” “Attractive Today,” “Everything is Alright,” and “The Future Freaks Me Out.”

I also caught some of Alkaline Trio’s set. They were playing Maybe I’ll Catch Fire in full as part of Riot Fest’s Full Album Plays. But they opened with “Private Eye” followed by “Calling All Skeletons,” and into “Mercy Me.” A solid start to what was going to be a very solid set for us forever fans. Of course… they ended with “Radio.” Part because the album does, but partially because they always seem to.

The next few hours were a blur. Foxy Shazam took to the Radical stage, the furthest away from all things, but the one that always seems to have the best bands and artists on it. They were SO epic – visually, audibly, in all ways. There were kicks and tricks and dancing and the best clothes/costumes. The band’s keyboardist, Sky White, took his keyboard off the stage and placed it into the crowd at one point and played on the crowd. I had been introduced to the band in a prior year of Riot Fest and feel the same way now that I did then – it’s really hard not to enjoy yourself at one of their shows.

I heard Frank Carter fronting The Sex Pistols and singing “Pretty Vacant” along with other hits well worn in my early punk years. It sounded great. But knowing that it was like Sex Pistols karaoke weirded me out a bit. John Lydon’s band – Public Image Ltd – was also on the lineup albeit on another date. I chalked the whole thing up to another experience on my bucket list of things I didn’t realize were on my bucket list until I experienced them. I felt the same way while watching Iggy Pop later in the night. He sounded great, dancing around tan and shirtless like I’ve always seen him in photos and videos. I was happy that so many people in the crowd seemed to be really into his set. They seemed to be crossing off bucket listers for themselves too.

I wandered over to catch some of Rise Against; as someone who was growing up in and around Chicago as they were getting a bit of national attention, I always watch them when they play Riot Fest. Tim called out the venues that started it all – the Knights of Columbuses, the bowling alleys (we all know you’re talking about Fireside), and the VFWs in the Midwest. They opened with “Re-Education (Through Labor),” and launched into “Ready to Fall,” and “Give It All” and I couldn’t help but think about the fact that these songs were on comps like Rock Against Bush and used to stoke anti-fascist flames in me and my friends when we were in high school and college. And now… here we are again… the songs are more relevant now then they ever were, but I don’t know that the people who are singing along really understand what they are singing about. The band has gotten arena-style big over the last decade and a half, meaning that many more people have access to them. And I feel like their powerful political messaging has been watered down in some of their newest albums. I know that you can’t force people to listen or learn; you can only do everything within your power to get your message across. And what I noticed after looking at the entire Rise Against set for the night is that they plugged it full of older hits. “The Prayer of the Refugee” speaks for itself. “Chamber The Cartridge” speaks EXACTLY to what I penned above. “Can we be saved? Or has the damage all been done? Is it too late to reverse what we’ve become?” Their set spoke volumes… for those ready to hear it.

The last band of the night was GWAR. I walked over with my press pals – photographers Mat and Matt and Sam all decked out in their ponchos and cameras wrapped in plastic. Curtis and I hung out far outside of the splash zone by a nearby tree. We had been talking about which political figure they would be disemboweling this evening all day long. Putin? Elon? I was really hoping for RFK Jr. I’m getting tired of these food recalls and health outbreaks. But instead… we watched the heavy metal aliens beat up and dismember an ICE office that was strangely shaped like grimace or the poop emoji. Oddly enough, when I just Googled “Gwar kills Ice Agent” looking for a photo to hopefully write a better description than “the poop emoji,” The Hard Times apparently beat us all to the punch by writing this headline into fruition back in January.

The photographers marched out of the photo pit red and dripping in faux blood and we all headed back to the press area to grab our things. The crowd for Twenty One Pilots had been growing all day and it now reached far back into the field. And it wasn’t just people plopped down on the lawn on blankets; I’m talking about solid human-on-human walls of people waiting for the band. We snaked our way out of the festival grounds as they were playing to raucous cheers. Sometimes it’s good to be too old to care about the headliners who also require pre-approved photo credentials.

We lugged our bags and bodies back to the car and headed over to the annual dinner spot – Handlebar. Every year, every night, we eat at Handlebar, a restaurant I never go to any other time of year, despite living 12 minutes away. As I sipped my vegan hot cocoa with baby marshmallows, I thought about what a solid first day it was. So many friends, so many bands. Sure, I missed some things and sure my feet already felt like they were going to fall off. But it was so nice to be back at it, hungerly inhaling dinner with a tableful of people I mostly really know because of this festival. Now, if Day 2 and Day 3 were just like this, I would be golden. *Narrator Voice* But Days 2 and 3 were definitely NOT like this and she was, in fact, not golden at all.

Stay tuned for Day 2 coverage tomorrow and check out Mat’s photos below: