In The Loop Magazine Festival Review: Riot Fest 2026: Family, Friends, Rain, Mud & All That Follow. The 21st Anniversary Continues Traditions And Builds On The New

Festival Review: Riot Fest 2026: Family, Friends, Rain, Mud & All That Follow. The 21st Anniversary Continues Traditions And Builds On The New

Sep 24, 2026 admin_bitlc Features, Festivals, Music News, Reviews 0

By Scarlett Medina

You know you’re going to Riot Fest before you even get there. This was my first-ever Riot Fest, and on Friday afternoon, waiting for the Pink Line at Washington and Wabash, I was already getting my introduction to Riot Fest. You didn’t need to ask anyone where they were headed; the all black fits mixed with neon gave it away. There was that specific kind of excitement that only exists when a bunch of strangers are about to experience the same thing together.

Three days in Douglass Park made one thing clear: Riot Fest isn’t built for only one type of person. It’s for the 20-somethings starting their first mosh pit, the 60 year olds remembering the first time they saw a band decades ago, and the families who’ve turned this into a yearly tradition. Everyone, one way or another, ends up in the same park, collectively deciding to just go with it.

Day 1: Everyone is still clean

The first day was the calm before the storm, literally. Friday was sunny, everyone was still clean, and the festival grounds were just pretty.

My first set was Violet Grohl playing to a calmer crowd made up of almost every age group. A lot of people around me seemed to be hearing the songs for the first time, but as “Bug in the Cake” came along, heads started moving together, and the crowd became more invested. By the last song, more people were moving along, and the crowd felt completely different from how it had started.

At one point, someone noticed that I was alone and simply asked if I wanted to hang out with them. Only a few hours into my first Riot Fest, this told me everything I needed to know about the crowd.

Between sets, I caught a family for a quick interview. One of the kids was on his third Riot Fest, while his mother had been coming for 11 years, back in its Humboldt Park days. At that point, I could really see that Riot Fest isn’t only about the lineup; it’s also a tradition that gets passed down.

But that friendliness didn’t mean the crowds were going to stay calm. Mariachi El Bronx started with an older crowd that wasn’t moving much beyond applauding and laughing at the band’s jokes until the accordion came out and a “let’s fuck this shit up” was heard. Then the crowd started making their best attempt at Cumbia dancing.

3OH!3 took that energy and ran with it. This was a crowd that knew exactly when to scream, throw their hands in the air and yell the lyrics. “My First Kiss” brought giant plastic balls bouncing over everyone’s heads, while “DONTTRUSTME” turned the end of the set into one massive party with a crowd that already knew exactly what was coming.

And then my personal favorite of the day, Joey Valance & Brae, who basically jump scared the festival with a sudden “WHAT UUUUUUP?” blasting through the Riot Stage, making the crowd flinch before they could even process what was happening. From there, the pit opened up, hands went up, and the two barely seemed to stop moving. At one point, they yelled, “Let’s turn this bitch into a club,” which, against all odds, under a cloudy Chicago sky at 4:45 p.m., made complete sense. But they weren’t just asking people to jump. They told the crowd to make friends and talk to the person next to them. When they asked for a scream, they got one.

Their own lyric, “We are not looking for trouble, we are looking for love,” captured the whole set perfectly. By the second chord of “PUNK TACTICS,” the scream that went up was the loudest thing I’d heard all day. Even people who had been standing relatively still were smiling or jumping by the end. One fan I talked to, who had seen them the year before, described the whole thing as high energy, dancing and not caring about anything except “spreading joy.”

A few sets later, Santigold felt like walking into a different festival. As the sun started going down, the moon became visible behind the stage while birds flew overhead and her dancers, dressed in white, moved around her. After the chaos of JVB, this crowd was calmer, swaying and singing along instead of opening pits. Somehow the festival set started feeling unexpectedly intimate, almost like a weirdly peaceful block party.

As the sun went down, Sex Pistols brought a completely different generation. Watching people who had grown up with this music throw their hands into the air made the set feel anything but old. I spoke with a 64-year-old fan who had first seen them when he was a teenager, and years later, there he was again, describing the experience as “epic.” If Day One made one thing obvious, it was that nobody is aging out of Riot Fest.

Iggy Pop only made that more obvious. Shirtless, as always, he walked on stage with the kind of energy that had people questioning how he was still doing it. Between songs, I kept hearing some version of “how does he still look that good?” And judging by how much fun he seemed to be having up there, he wasn’t exactly ready to slow down either.

By the time Twenty One Pilots closed the night, there still was one unanswered question: Did they actually belong there? Some Riot Fest fans had questioned their place as a headliner, and the band clearly knew it. Instead of ignoring it, they acknowledged the elephant in the room and told the audience they were going to try to earn their spot.

What followed was a band very aware that it had something to prove. From the barricade to the people all the way in the back, the crowd was singing along. They climbed above the crowd, Josh at some point performed from an elevated platform, and both went down to the barricade, even bringing festival staff into the show. Then came “Seven Nation Army,” introduced by a video of the man himself, Jack White, giving them permission to play it. And let me tell you that once that guitar started, the crowd took over.

Between the pyrotechnics, confetti, lights and constant crowd interaction, Twenty One Pilots went big without making the whole thing feel disconnected. At the end, they went back to the question hanging over the set from the beginning, hoping they had managed to win Riot Fest over.

Day One had started with a stranger offering me a place beside them and ended with an entire field singing together in the dark. For a first Riot Fest, that felt like a pretty great introduction.

Day 2: Well, this sucks?

If Day One was the honeymoon phase, Day Two was the reality check. It started with the kind of rain you can pretend doesn’t exist. During Angine de Poitrine’s set, it was barely a drizzle, and nobody seemed bothered by it. People kept vibing, dancing and moving their heads through the guitar solos and crushing drum beats.

Sadly, around 3 p.m., came the announcement that nobody wanted. The schedule was getting cut. Was it really a surprise? Not really. This is Chicago weather, after all. Sets got pushed up, shortened, and suddenly everyone had to figure out where they were supposed to be.

Public Image Ltd. was one of the first sets I saw after the announcement, and very on-brand, they had zero interest in pretending everything was fine. Before really getting into the set, they talked about how Riot Fest had handled the situation, even telling the crowd that if they were us, they’d ask for their money back. They didn’t stop there, either. They joked that rescheduling like that works out fine for the festival, and them as a band still getting paid no matter how long they play, just not for the people who paid to be there. That alone was enough to get the crowd hyped for what was coming.

Once the music started, nobody seemed to care anymore about the schedule. People were screaming along, smiling and giving the band exactly what they were asking for. The schedule might have been changed, but the show was still happening, and everyone was going to make the most of it.

Social Distortion had even less time, which they acknowledged almost immediately, assuring the crowd they were going to make the most of it. Their audience, again mostly fans in their 40s and 50s, clearly didn’t seem to care how short the set was as long as they got to see them. The band kept things moving, and the applause never died down.

By the time VANA came on at the Radical Stage, the rain had slowed down, and the energy shifted with her younger audience. I can still remember the reaction from people hearing her for the first time when that first scream hit, which, by the way, sounded just as intense live as it does recorded. There was this split second of “what?” before the reaction turned, almost instantly, into “okay, let’s go.” Watching people discover her in real time made the set feel even more alive. By the time the first wall of death opened up, she definitely had their attention.

Meanwhile, Gogol Bordello had absolutely no problem getting theirs. The crowd at the Rise Stage was huge and fully invested. Balloons floated overhead, hands stayed in the air, and there were some genuinely impressive dance moves happening around me. Hearing “Not a Crime” live was already a highlight, but hearing hundreds of people yelling it back made it even better.

And then there was Morrissey or, at least, the question of whether there would actually be a Morrissey. Listening to people around me wonder if he would even show up became entertaining on its own with people literally betting that he wouldn’t. But against the odds, Morrissey did, in fact, show up, and not only that, but he also did an amazing set. He even commented on it saying, “Yes, I’m actually here.” Near the end of his set he pulled his shirt off, and the crowd let out a collective, half-surprised but not really “oh.” As he had been steadily stripping down all through his performance.

Finally, it was time for Tool, and to say the crowd was excited would be an understatement. You could feel the anticipation before anyone even walked onstage, with everyone moving closer, yelling toward the stage and fans in their 50s and 60s greeting each other like teenagers. Once those first chords hit, that excitement pretty much exploded.

They weren’t necessarily the most physically chaotic audience of the weekend, but they were easily one of the most devoted. One woman I interviewed had seen Tool more than five times, and seeing them again still felt like reliving part of her youth. They didn’t need much talking either. They let the music do most of the work. At some point, Maynard put the entire weekend into words. He mentioned that he’d recently undergone a hip replacement and was advised against performing, but his attitude onstage basically came down to fuck it, it’s Riot Fest. Oh and after the first song, he noted an apology saying, “With a flight delay, rain and a 2 hour set time change, I’m sorry but I didn’t have time for the hair hat.” Referring to his plain look as he’s normally in costume with makeup and a giant multicolored mohawk.

Around 7 p.m., the rain was coming down harder. Most people simply threw on jackets or ponchos and stayed, while others finally decided they’d had enough. Nas eventually closed out the shortened day, and I kept hearing people say he had basically “saved Day Two” by staying longer. Ultimately becoming the closing act of the day making him the headliner.

It wasn’t the Day Two anyone had expected, but that almost became the point. Sets moved, schedules got cut, but everyone just adapted and kept going. And eventually, after all of that, the day left us with one perfect joke Riot Fest pulled a Morrissey on us while even Morrissey didn’t.

Day 3: Fuck It, Embrace the Mud

By Day Three, the ground had officially given up. What had been tall fluffy grass on Friday was now fully mud, and the kind of mud that would swallow your shoe if you weren’t careful. We’d all made our peace with it, one way or another. The rain kept coming, and people were already talking about it being some of the worst weather Riot Fest had seen in years if not ever. Great timing for my first Riot Fest, right? Ponchos were on (I didn’t have one), shoes were dirty, and avoiding the mud became more unrealistic by the minute. Still, nobody seemed particularly interested in letting it ruin the vibe.

The Beths made that clear early on. It was still lightly raining during their set, and you better believe that didn’t stop a mosh pit from opening in the middle of a muddy crowd. People danced in ponchos and acted like the ground underneath them wasn’t slowly turning into a swamp. The band seemed just as excited about the crowd as the crowd was about them.

Pennywise pushed that sense of community even further. Fans ended up onstage while everyone joined in on the chorus, creating one of those moments where you couldn’t really tell where the performance ended and the crowd began.

Then Patti Smith managed to make the weather part of the show. With everyone getting soaked and surrounded by mud, she joked, “I was born in the middle of a snowstorm, what can I say? I’m just a bad weather girl.” At that point, what else could you do but laugh and enjoy the music?

Safe to say that by Sunday, the attitude wasn’t “hopefully the weather gets better” anymore. It was more like, “Well, fuck it might as well.” Or, “Is it over yet?”

William Shatner brought yet another completely different energy, immediately getting the audience involved, making them scream the lyrics and repeatedly getting laughs out of the crowd. Honestly, he looked like he was enjoying every second of it too.

Then Alanis Morissette shifted everything again. She brought a huge crowd, and the vibe turned into something warm and nostalgic. Every time she pulled out her harmonica, without fail, the crowd lost it a little more. By the time “Ironic” hit, the entire field was singing along word for word. Watching people openly cry next to complete strangers created the kind of shared moment that almost made you forget your shoes were full of mud and you hadn’t felt your feet in a while, unless you were one of the people who brought boots.

Ultimately, that mix of generations I’d noticed from the moment I got on the Pink Line that Friday afternoon was still there all the way through the closing sets. Twin Peaks brought a younger crowd mixed with fans who had been there since their early days. Elvis Costello brought out people in their 40s, 50s and 60s who knew the lyrics without fail. And then Pierce the Veil closed things out with exactly the kind of crowd you’d expect from Riot Fest. From the people packed against the front to those standing all the way in the back, the audience never really stopped giving everything they had.

Riot Fest’s third night wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable if it had just been another hot summer evening.

And then, naturally, I fell. I fully sank into a mud hole. Before I could even process what had happened, strangers were already pulling me back up, laughing, telling me I’d just been “baptized.” Congrats, apparently.

That’s the moment I keep thinking about when I look back at the weekend. After three days of watching people help each other in pits, pull strangers into their groups, bring their kids into a scene they grew up with, and still find a way to keep going through some genuinely awful weather, it just felt like the perfect way to end it.

I walked in with zero expectations. I walked out with ruined shoes, a phone full of bands I didn’t know I needed, and the sudden, ridiculous urge to come back next year and do it all over again. Rain, mud, and all.

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