Thanks to an overnight flash flood rainstorm that lasted the entire night, and then the rain that continued the entirety of Sunday, it turned out to be the most challenging Riot Fest in history. It was challenging for everyone involved on numerous levels. The fest delayed the opening of the gates until 2pm so they could try to manage all the standing water throughout the park before they let people in to trample the place into a muddy swamp. It was a losing battle that no one could have won because the rain didn’t stop the entire day until well into the evening, and that was only for an hour before it started up again.
This later opening meant that a bunch of bands scheduled before 2pm got cut, and the rest of them had their schedules adjusted to be able to fit in as many bands as they could. The fest did a really good job with the schedule adjustments so most people didn’t end up missing too many bands as a whole. They also did what they could to try and manage the muddy mess that park was, but it was too much to get ahead of and the later it got in the day, the most deep and widespread the mud was until the entire festival grounds was a soupy, muddy mess. That didn’t seem to stop a bigger than anticipated crowd from coming out and braving all of this to see some great bands, and it also didn’t stop the crazy younger kids from still moshing and crowd surfing, which was insane and was extra taxing on the Riot Fest security staff trying to catch them and get them back into the crowd safely. Those people should be given huge rewards for having to deal with that all day in those slippery conditions.
New York punk legends, Murphy’s Law was up first as the rain continued pouring down. They played a super fun set of their party anthems while lead singer Jimmy Gestapo sang a lot from inside the barricade so he can be next to the crowd for them to sing along with him. They sounded great and no one let the rain and mud get in the way of having a good time. It’s also great to see the band still at it after all these years, with many obvious lineup changes.
Next up was Sincere Engineer. I can’t think of a newer band that is more beloved than this one and they deserve all the love they receive and then some. A huge crowd turned up for them and Doordash even provided corndogs for the crowd during their set so they could have the obligatory corndog mosh pit! The band played a mix of some newer songs from the recent album and some past favorites and the crowd was nothing but wet, muddy smiles! This band deserves every bit of success and their audience has been steadily growing over the past couple of years and it won’t be long before they are playing a much later slot on that main stage at this festival. If they are playing within a 100 mile radius of your home you best go out of your way to take the time to go see them, you’ll never be disappointed and you will leave smiling for the rest of the day. They were really the highlight of the day, and kept people’s minds off of the horrible weather and the mess for the half hour or so that they played.
Pretty Girls Make Graves soon followed. First of all, how can you not appreciate a band that named themselves after a Smiths song? They were really enjoyable as they played their style of indie rock/post hardcore/emo. They have a lot of catchy songs and the crowd was way into it. I am not sure if they played this fest before, but I sure hope they bring them back again, they fit in beautifully.
Pennywise made their return to the fest once again. They’ve played Riot Fest a lot, and they are always a welcomed addition to the lineup. They worked the crowd into a frenzy with their fast paced pop punk, and the kids went wild. If there was a roof on the place, they’d have blown it off when they played the crowd favorite, “Bro Hymn”. If there was a roof on the place we’d have a lot less rain and mud too. Douglass Park needs a retractable dome!
Jejune was an emo/indie rock band that started in the mid 1990s and broke up in the early 2000’s. They recently reunited and people like me got to hear what they. missed out on the first time around. They had a little bit of shoegaze to their sound too which made it all the more enjoyable. They sounded great and now I’m going to have to seek out their records to make up for them flying under my radar for three decades! I hope they stick around and that this wasn’t a short lived reunion!
Riot Fest has been known for having some pretty unique celebrity acts over the years. In the past we’ve had Corey Feldman and even John Stamos (as part of the Beach Boys), and this year we got William Shatner. The former captain of the Enterprise beamed over to Riot Fest to front a heavy metal band called The ‘uckers. You read that right, Shatner, at the age of 95, performed with a heavy metal band! This had to be seen to be believed. The park grounds were packed full of fans and curious onlookers. Also, the famous actor who has almost 40 years on me has way more energy than I do! That’s incredible!
Shatner was backed by a full band of talented musicians, one of whom looked like Lou Reed, and two who looked like they could’ve been a member of a variety of hair metal bands in the late 1980s, which was totally appropriate for what was about to take place. Shatner came out and talked to the audience for a few minutes before the band started playing. He got a huge round of applause from the audience when he came out.
What followed was a set of covers of popular heavy metal songs that the band played and Shatner would sing to. When I say sing, what I really mean was that he did spoken word reciting of the song lyrics, and more often it was way out of time with the music. The bass player actually did sing backups and try to guide him, but it was lost on Shatner. I’ve heard music recordings that Shatner has done in the past where he did spoken word delivery of lyrics over the music and it’s one of those B-movie, “so bad it’s good” type of things that you can’t help but listen to if you’re exposed to it. This performance was a lot like that. It wasn’t a great “performance” in the traditional sense, but the band played the music to those songs great, and it was impossible not to find entertainment in watching TJ Hooker, the former Captain Kirk, recite the lyrics to songs like “Crazy Train”, “Enter Sandman”, and “Ace Of Spades” at the ripe old age of 95. This was a once in a lifetime event that people will be reminiscing about for years to come. Outside of Sincere Engineer’s great performance, it was the other great highlight of the day that made sitting in a park full of quicksand mud and rain worth all the discomfort.
While the final day of the 21st Riot Fest may have been a disaster of bad weather, the show did go on, and there was a handful of really good performances that helped to keep your mind off the bad conditions we had to endure to be there. Hopefully next year we will get a real summer instead of three months of rain so Riot Fest will once again happen under perfect weather conditions that is more the norm than it has been lately, either way it was still a solid weekend festival and the last hurrah of summer.
