Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Run The Jewels are all set to headline this year's Riot Fest
Music Features The Smashing Pumpkins
Riot Fest is officially back! With more people getting vaccinated and governors across the country dropping mask mandates, it’s looking like this summer and this fall will finally start looking a little bit like the Before Times—which means, more live music. Festival organizers have released the lineup for this year’s Riot Fest and it’s pretty great. Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, and Run The Jewels have all signed on to headline.
This year’s lineup also includes a ton of acts that are sure to get a well of nostalgia bubbling inside you and have you trying to remember all the songs on all of your old high school mixtapes. Some of these acts include: Pixies, Coheed and Cambria, Taking Back Sunday, New Found Glory, Sublime with Rome, Faith No More, NOFX, Motion City Soundtrack, Dirty Heads, Gogol Bordello, Thrice, Circa Survive, Simple Plan, Best Coast, Andrew W.K., Bayside, Thursday, State Champs, Save The Day and many, many more.
Chicago natives—and two of the only hip hop acts joining this year—Vic Mensa and Lupe Fiasco have also signed on to perform that weekend.
The lineup is impressively stacked and it’s pretty clear that fans are eager to head back out to concerts. Three-day passes for the festival went on sale today and they quickly sold out. However, for those music lovers who prefer a more luxe experience, “ultimate” 3-day passes are still available. For 1600 bucks, you can listen to the dulcet sounds of Trent Reznor, while enjoying a private cabana, a private bar, concierge services, and a private restroom. Single day passes are set to go on sale at some point next week.
Riot Fest organizers have also announced that My Chemical Romance will headline the lineup in 2022. Tickets for next year have also gone on sale—the first time the festival has ever made tickets available for purchase so far in advance.
45 Comments
Headline? They’re all opening for the headliner, The Wiggles!
*The New Shebangs, featuring Big Timmy.
And thanks to your gloomy music,
they’ve finally stopped dreaming of a future I can’t possibly provide.
Not just Sublime, but Sublime WITH ROME!
That alone makes it a must-miss. I don’t even want to hear that crap in the distance while I scarf down a churro.
There’s some cool bands on there, but I’d be most interested for The Circle Jerks and Les Savy Fav.
Have any of these bands been relevant at any point in the last 20 years? I suppose Best Coast and Gogol Bordello were more 00’s than 90’s. Going after an older audience makes sense – as that’s who can afford to spend $1,600 on a private cabana – but usually there’s at least a token attempt to include some current artists in the line-up.
While Riot Fest definitely caters to the alt/punk/indie nostalgia crowd (I can’t lie, I’m most excited to see Living Colour this year) there are always some really good newer bands every year. Granted, they’re in small font near the bottom of the lineup, but that’s always my favorite part of the festival, finding my new favorite bands.
If you want relevance go to the Relevant Fest. Just be careful what you do because everything that happens there matters.
Where paying $12 for a bottle of water, and waiting in line for forty minutes to use a shit-splattered box dunny has meaning.
I think K. Flay and maybe PUP are the only two bands that aren’t in tiny print that would interest anyone under 25. But yeah, those people don’t have a ton of disposal income so why bother booking for that crowd?
Considering the last twenty years has produced very few relevant bands, the question is moot.
Are the bands relevant? I guess it depends on who you talk to. One year I saw Iggy, Bootsy, Merle Haggard, Jimmy Cliff, Ice Cube, Snoop. Anthrax. I don’t know if the kids today like that, but I did. I usually wait til the last second to get a 3 day pass on Craigslist for $50.
They’ve been playing festivals around the world for the last five years, so yes, they are indeed relevant.
I’m admittedly a huge Trent Reznor fan and know he has spent a lot of time recently on movie soundtracks (and killed it) but IMO NIN is always a relevant band worth seeing live.
Last 3 EPS were very good (and critics generally seemed to like them), his movie work is terrific, and I love me some Ghosts V & VI … so, yeah, relevant to us!
NIN won an Oscar last month & in 2011. Seems relevant.
Oh yeah? So his set will consist of the score from Soul?
I sure hope they will. Unexpected out of the left field moment.
Run The Jewels didn’t even exist 20 years ago.
That’s kind of the pleasure of festivals though. You realize all these artists you haven’t heard of in decades are not only still around, they often still put on a great show. Getting to see the Melvins, Faith No More and Social Distortion at Bumpershoot was a fun and unique experience. I’m six years old by the way.
I’m always surprised to see the Melvins in any festival lineup. I was sure they disbanded like, 15 years ago. Like Kurt Cobain, they’ll just keep living on…
Yeah, I don’t know what the were doing still existing, besides being amazing onstage.
Run the Jewels didn’t even start until 2013.
You’re right. None of them are relevant which is why a festival’s big deal relaunch has booked them all. Their goal was to create no buzz, sell no tickets and do nothing of interest to anyone.You cracked the case.Or…the bands are relevant and you’re the one who’s not. Which sounds more plausible?
Mike and El-P are both a decade older than me, but they didn’t form Run the Jewels and release their debut album together until 2013.
They don’t have to be relevant in the last 20 years. NiN, Pixies and Pumpkins released some of the most popular and enduring music of the 90s. People just want Downward Spiral and Siamese Dream, not whatever recent albums they’ve been releasing
Eh younger people are usually the worst crowds at a festival, getting blind drunk and not being able to handle themselves. Better off not to cater to them.
Who the hell is Mr. Bungle?
Mike Patton’s other, weirder band that used to sound kind of like Oingo Boingo.
A Mr. Bungle is somebody who has terrible manners.
LOL
The guy my ‘96 roommate never stops talking about.
Annie on Community: Who’s Billy Joel?Rest of the cast: Aaaaaaaww!!
I can give about 70% certainty that it will be Mike Patton and his Bungle boys, plus Dave Lombardo from Slayer and Scott Ian from Anthrax and they will whup your lily ass with some of the best Thrash Metal ever played.
There is this thing called Google. Idk.
If you thought Mike Patton’s singing couldn’t be any more annoying then you’re in for a treat.
I like a lot of these bands, but Riot Fest can go fuck itself. I’m just happy they finally got kicked out of Humboldt Park. It not only completely wrecks a public park and does nothing to fix it afterwards (so the park is fucked up for months) but they also make it a point to ensure the local businesses are shut out of any profits with their no re-entry rule.
I didn’t realize that I couldn’t leave and come back. When I found out, I thought “There must be somebody I can listen to until the next band I like comes on.” I ended up settling on the Village People lol.
This shit all bills itself as a “great boon for the neighborhood” but in reality its a fucking plague. That “no re-entry” means nobody gets to go to the neighborhood businesses. They come in, wreck the fucking place, and then leave. And guess what, NO money comes back! So, between setup, the show, and teardown, it’s a solid week where the neighborhood is crowded, parking is wrecked, the park itself is wrecked, but nobody ACTUALLY spends money locally.
I have nothing against any of these bands, in fact I love quite a few, but as a Chicagoan I miss when Riot Fest was punk alternative to Lolla and Pitchfork. The last time I went Naked Raygun was headlining. Naked Raygun.
By the way, which one’s “Jewel”?
Robert De Niro
Billy Corgan
Smashing Pupkin
Title should read “Faith No More, Mr Bungle and some other guys I guess ,to play Riot Festival” 😉