Bad Copy

I woke up on Day 3 after a good night’s sleep. I was ready for anything… which was a good thing because today was about to throw out 100 curve balls. I was about five blocks away from Mat’s house when I got the notification that the festival grounds would not be opening on time at 11AM (which was in just a few minutes) but instead would be opening at 2PM. It rained all night. There had been thunder and lightning. And they said that they needed time for the grounds to dry out a bit. I get it, but UGGGH. I texted Mat, turned around, and headed home to get some more recharge time.

I tried the whole thing again in a few hours. Grabbed Mat and headed down to secret parking. The world was wet and the forecast didn’t look like it was going to get better. As we walked into the park, we saw a familiar sight – trucks full of wood chips being dumped onto the baseball field and cylindrical trucks with huge hoses attached to them sucking up stagnant water pooling in the lower areas of the park. This was a flashback to 2023 when a storm delayed the gate opening and Mat, Matt, and I were some of the only people who didn’t get the memo. Because we’re press, we got let in and we roamed the empty festival grounds alone. There were no lines for food or bathrooms. We got to watch bands and artists soundcheck to no one. And we got to meet a cute, tiny dog. This year seemed wetter. I prophesized that the grass currently under our feet wouldn’t be there in a few hours. I was suddenly glad I went with the least fashion forward footwear available – black rubber rain boots.

Aaron from Bearded Gentlemen was already in the press area hunkered down. A few other brave souls had showed up early to brave the rain. I only had two rounds of Bad Libs planned for the day, and I was excited to get out of the press area to catch some bands, as long as the weather held up. First up was Sincere Engineer. As I had mentioned somewhere in all over this coverage before, I’ve known Deanna since she was playing solo sets in the backrooms of bars across the northside. I am so proud of what she and the band have done over the years and all of the hard work and perseverance they have put into the band. They just came back from a tour, turned around and played the wettest, grossest day at Riot Fest 2026, and still was able to get the crowd amped to sing about corndogs. The setlist was a good mix of older and new. They played songs off their newest album, Probable Claws, which came out in June along with Cheap Grills. It was a great set all around.

I caught a little bit of Macseal before scampering back to the press area to wait my turn to chat with Toronto’s own The Flatliners. It was starting to rain again and my raincoat was giving up. I could feel it happening. In addition, my hair was getting wet as the hood was no help. So… I did what any normal human being who was planning to spend the next seven and a half hours in the rain would do, I tied a black plastic bag over my head. I received a variety of compliments and commentary. I was told that I looked like Rita Repulsa from Power Rangers. I was told that I looked like a little old Polish lady with a babushka on. My people! Either way, my hair was dry and I was happy.

As I watched the guys in The Flatliners getting interviewed and photographed with various media outlets, I noticed that they were being asked to keep taking their raincoats off. Then they would put them back on, move to a new outlet, chat, and be asked to take them off again. So, when it was Bad Copy’s turn, I ushered them over and under the press tent where it was dry. We had no banner up anymore. There were no bells and whistles. It was just a few people hanging out under a white tent in the pouring rain talking about parts of speech. When I asked for an imaginary place and they shouted out “Lake Ontario” I about lost it. So good.

After I thanked them for their time and apologized for our current administration’s bullshittery, I ran over to catch The Beths. I hadn’t been out amongst the people in just over an hour and, in that time, the ground had gotten squishy. There were still large islands of grass, but it was obvious what was going to happen after a few more hours. I was so happy to finally catch The Beths after years of trying to see them and things/life just continually getting in the way. Without thinking about it, I had worn my black trash bag hat out into the masses. I only realized it when people with cameras started taking photos of me. It was very strange to have the roles reversed after all these years. But I posed and danced as the rain continued to come down.

I headed back to Press to meet up with Macseal to conduct my final Bad Libs of the weekend. Three of the four band members were there; the other left to get a tattoo. But the trio called him in the middle of the filling-out process because they needed help with a “suspicious business name.” Much to my surprise, he answered the phone AND flawlessly answered “Business LLC.” Yep. That’s the best answer. They were great and so fun. Then, I traveled with the press photographer pals all the way across the park over to the far stage to catch Dead to Me and The Flatliners. The grass over there was gone. The ground was muck. As I walked, I felt it trying to pull the boots from my feet. I quickly found that there was a trick to it. You needed to walk swiftly and step lightly so your feet didn’t sink. But at the same time, if you moved too fast, you could lose your balance and fall down. I watched a good handful of people – drunk people possibly – just fall over into the mud and give it. It reminded me of the saddest scene in practically all of little kid cinema, the scene in The Neverending Story with the Swamps of Sadness. I wanted to waddle over to each person who fell fully down into the mud and shout at them “Artax! You have to care. You’ve gotta move, or you’ll die!”

Standing under a tree watching The Flatliners, I started to shiver. My rain coat had given up. It was just wet fabric on my skin. I needed to figure out what to do to stay warm for another few hours. I had weighed the risks of getting COVID this weekend, but I had not planned on pneumonia. So, when I got back to the press area, I peeled off my jacket, I toweled off with my dry sweatshirt that I had been storing in a large black trash bag and thought. I looked at the sweatshirt. I looked at the trash bag. I looked at the sweatshirt. I looked at the trash bag. Five seconds later I was wearing the trash bag, dry and warm AF. With the small bag on my head and large bag on my body, I may have become the trash, but I was warm and dry.

I ventured back into the crowd with the press pals and we slowly made our way through the muck and the quicksand-like mud to get to the stage before William Shatner and the Fuckers came on. I had a friend who had seen him play at an after show the night before and said it was amazing. Apparently that was his debut night singing along to metal songs. But I didn’t know what to expect. As the light rain came down, Curtis and I watched in amazement as William Shatner took to the stage and talked his way through Ozzy’s “Crazy Train.” Oh… it was somehow exactly what you thought William Shatner mixed with Metal would be. The second song was one of theirs, titled “Rage.” I just stood there in awe. And then it happened.

The riff that I would still remember even if I was long dead, the riff to Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” began to play. Shatner spoke his way through the first verse and Curtis and I were shouting along. Now, I need you to imagine the exact cadence that the 95 year old Star Trek star is famous for. As the chorus approached, I knew what was going to happen, but I still couldn’t believe it. “The Ace… of … SPAAAAAADES!” he spoke. “The… Ace OF SPADES!” I was in stitches. It was so good. It was so surreal. It was so Shatner. And then he added, “And-don’t… forGET… THE JOKER!!!” I died. Everyone around me was having so much fun despite the weather. It was one of those amazing Riot Fest experiences that you never forget.

After we had our fill of metal Shatner, Curtis and I headed over to catch part of Alanis Morissette’s set. It was back to back hits. “Head Over Feet,” “You Learn,” of course “Ironic,” “You Oughta Know,” “Uninvited.” It was a relentless music tidal wave of late 90s and early aughts musical flashbacks for me.

The night was coming to a close. We were all cold and wet and tired. But I started to get that sad feeling knowing that something so epic, something that took so much planning, so much energy was almost over and that we would all have to wait another year to have this same brand of experience again. Insane Clown Posse would be the final act of the night for us all, as none of us got approved to shoot the headliner. I had begrudgingly agreed to head back to press after three songs so we could pack up all of our gear and make our way out of the festival before the masses swarmed. A few years ago, when ICP played, they were my favorite set of the weekend by far and I spent the next few months listening to almost nothing but. I knew the group was right, but I was almost willing to risk pneumonia or some mystery festival illness to catch their whole set again.

We set off across the park again to the furthest stage. The ground had gotten even worse. There were about eight different types of mud out there. There was pool of water on the top mud. There was slick mud on hard ground (good for falling). There was sticky deep mud (good for stealing shoes). There was fake out mud that looked like dry land but when you stepped in it you sank and lost balance. Crossing the festival an hour or two before the headliner plays is always a nightmare. Crossing it on what felt like chocolate icing but smelled much worse was treacherous beyond belief. We got to the stage and Curtis and I wove our way through the crowd as the Mat(t)s entered the photo pit ready to get sprayed with Faygo. Curtis shared a couple of Whoop Whoops with the fans around us as the Detroit duo took the stage and the beat for “Hall of Illusions” blasted. They played another Milenko hit, “Hokus Pokus,” after that followed by “Let’s Go All The Way.” I was hoping that Curtis got so wrapped up in the set that he forgot that we were supposed to leave after three songs. I wanted to stay. But Curtis didn’t forget. We walked through the crowd – one of us slower than the other – as they rocketed into “My Axe.”

The final walk back to the press tent was treacherous, so much so that Curtis and I had to stop off at one of the photobooths and take photo for our annual Day 3 photo strip. Last year I didn’t like how I looked because I was wearing my glasses and was tired. This year, I was wearing a black garbage bag. Perfect. We reunited with the press crew, packed our bags, said our goodbyes to those left, thanked the Riot Fest press crew for another great year and we wandered out into the mud and the masses again. I focused on each step as a balanced a backpack full of camera gear, a tripod, and the Bad Copy banner. There were a few places where I thought that the sole of my boot may just come off. But, in the end, we all made it out and to the street together.

We agreed to meet for one final family dinner at Handlebar. But there would be much cleaning before then. Mat and I splashed in puddles on the street on our walk back to secret parking. We also changed when we got to the car. Once we got to Handlebar, we found out that Jackie took off her pants and shoes and left them on the side of the road as she had a change in her car. She also had an extra pair of shorts that Curtis changed into outside the restaurant. By the time we walked in, we were relatively okay looked – still kind of wet and soggy, but not too muddy at all. Family dinner went exactly as they always do every year. We were all a bit loopy, a bit exhausted, ravenously hungry, and spent most of the time recounting the weekend. I kept shouting “And don’t… forGET… THE JOKER!” We settled up. We went to say our goodbyes outside. We lingered longer. And then we finally gave a round of hugs and go into our respective cars. Another year in the books. This was THE wettest year of Riot Fest at Douglass Park, only to possibly be rivaled by a similarly mucky year in Humboldt Park where I fell into a mud hole up to my thigh and a friend had to help fish me out while I fought the mud to keep my shoe. Here’s to another year… and here’s to some sleep. Except not for me. I had been listed as a friend’s plus 1 for The Flatliners after show at Cobra Lounge. So… I breathed in a 15th wind and pointed my car south for another few hours of fun. May it never end.

Check out Mat’s Photos below:

Check out our Day 1 coverage along with our Day 2 coverage!