{"id":29963,"date":"2018-09-17T21:16:22","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T02:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/?p=29963"},"modified":"2018-09-17T21:51:41","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T02:51:41","slug":"riot-fest-2018-day-2-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/?p=29963","title":{"rendered":"Riot Fest 2018: Day 2 Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Christopher David<\/p>\n

In recent years, has there been a more representative day of what Riot Fest can offer than Saturday? Probably not. Showcasing everything from rock n\u2019 roll\u2019s most legendary figure outside of Elvis, to yet another legendary Elvis, a pioneer in electronica, and all the atmosphere and cool of New York, Riot Festers got chance after chance to see some of the best live music out there.<\/p>\n

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Chicago\u2019s own Beach Bunny started the day with their special blend of alt-pop, and if you weren\u2019t able to catch them on the Riot stage, you\u2019d better find them somewhere else in the city before they start to blow up, which seems inevitable given singer Lili Trifilio\u2019s penchant for sweet, surfy melodies and just the right amount of guitar jangle. (Check out their Prom Queen<\/em> EP on their Bandcamp site.)<\/p>\n

Over on the Rise Stage, the leaves were burned from the trees by the sheer volume and fury of Mannequin Pussy, a Philadephia foursome, who fit right in with Riot Fest\u2019s history of bringing new and classic punk together on the same stage. Vocalist Marisa Dabice alternates between tender whispers and shrieking fury, a force of nature onstage that we\u2019ll surely (hopefully?) be seeing more in future Riots. Mannequin Pussy are the perfect blend of punk, \u201890s riot-grrl aggression, and pummeling live performance, and you\u2019d better keep your eye on them – they have the natural chemistry of a band ready to do some damage, and they ramped the crowd up earlier than is usual.<\/p>\n

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A sunny afternoon in a wide-open field might normally have seemed like an out-of-place environment for an industrial-pop legend like the one and only Gary Numan, but down in the park (hehe), a crowd that spanned one of the day\u2019s broadest demographics stood in awe of a set that leaned heavily on the electronic pioneer\u2019s most recent record, Savage (Songs From a Broken World). <\/em>Taking the stage in beige robes that called to mind the stark, desert-like imagery of the new record, Numan\u2019s presence is huge, and thirty-two albums into his career (yes, you read that right), he shows no signs of slowing down. Delving into his back catalog for only a few choice nuggets (the ubiquitous \u201cCars\u201d and \u201cMetal\u201d), Numan\u2019s bravery as an artist who looks forward was in full-force, with one of the most powerful sets of the entire fest. (Check out our forthcoming interview with Numan for a look at what the future holds as well as some very special shows.)<\/p>\n

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After a suddenly announced cancer scare earlier this year, whether or not Elvis Costello would even appear at Riot Fest was in the air – but appear he did, and thank goodness, because we need him. Whether they know it or not, every indie rocker out there owes his or her livelihood to Elvis Costello\u2019s unique brand of pop, rock, reggae, jazz, and every genre in between. Tearing through \u201cPump It Up,\u201d \u201cMiracle Man,\u201d \u201cRadio, Radio,\u201d and deep cut \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Go to Chelsea\u201d all in the first half hour of his set, Costello was in great spirits and the Imposters were on point across the board; in particular, keyboardist Steve Nieve is always a pleasure to watch. When things slowed down a bit for \u201cI Want You\u201d and the midtempo \u201cClubland,\u201d you got a greater sense of the breadth of Costello\u2019s songwriting brushstrokes; for the most part, it was a rock set, and if anything, the collective desire for more after a timely rendering of \u201cWhat\u2019s So Funny Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding\u201d was palpable.<\/p>\n

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Interpol\u2019s new album Marauder<\/em> is a tightly wound affair playing on the band\u2019s strongest elements, and their shadowy, strobe-lit set as night fell on Day 2 was an atmospheric companion to their recorded work. A band whose presence is felt perhaps more strongly on record (live, there\u2019s a peculiar dryness that belies the eerie quality of Paul Banks\u2019 recorded vocals) the New Yorkers opened with \u201cNot Even Jail,\u201d one of the strongest tracks on 2004\u2019s Antics<\/em>, and dabbled in the new album with single \u201cThe Rover\u201d and record-opener \u201cIf You Really Love Nothing.\u201d Guitarist Daniel Kessler is the band\u2019s live heart, moving about the stage with an effortless kind of cool, and a blue-lit rendition of the melancholy \u201cNYC\u201d toward the end of the set moved into anthem territory before closer \u201cRoland\u201d from the band\u2019s 2002 debut wound things back up.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Killer.\u201d Say those words to anyone familiar with classic rock n\u2019 roll, and only one name can come to mind: the one and only Jerry Lee Lewis. Still touring at 82 years old, this was one for the books even by Riot Fest standards. Flanked by bassist Ray Gann and guitarist Kenny Lovelace, and backed by the awe-inspiring chops of drummer extraordinaire Kenny Aronoff, Lewis took the stage in a sequined jacket, untucked his shirt, and took his place at the piano with a shout of \u2018oh,yeah!\u2019 to pound out \u201cDown the Line,\u201d \u201cMexicali Rose,\u201d \u201cBefore the Night is Over,\u201d and set closer \u201cWhole Lotta Shakin\u2019 Goin\u2019 On,\u201d among others (and yes, there was a brief circle pit for \u201cDown the Line\u201d). It\u2019s easy to dismiss artists of a certain age as simply wanting to capitalize on nostalgia, as though somehow their contribution to popular music means less as a result\u2014but as anyone in the massive crowd to see Lewis could contest, at this point in his career, he has nothing to prove but the love for taking his place at the piano and continuing to deliver the roots of rock n\u2019 roll to fans young and old, and there\u2019s a beauty in that going far beyond nostalgia. The crowd felt it, and it was a moment of rare musical magic that transcended anything to do with genre, demographic, popularity, any of it – in a very real way, Jerry Lee Lewis is ultimately the only reason any of us were there in the first place, and when he raised his fist with a grin at the end of \u201cGreat Balls of Fire,\u201d it wasn\u2019t lost on anyone.<\/p>\n

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By the end of the night, it was going to take something truly special – a combination of spectacle and musical prowess – to reach a point of Riot Fest nirvana…and holy hell, did Beck deliver that in spades. Having taken his Colors<\/em> promotional tour on the road opening for U2 last year, what may have seemed like a strange pairing actually made all the sense in the world now that he\u2019s on the headlining stint, as the stage was a visual assault of optical illusions, seemingly animated floors and walls, and every other bizarre imagining under the Chicago moon as he delivered a hit-laden set in the best headlining spot of the weekend, bar none. Beck has evolved from a lovable stoner with an acoustic guitar to a world-class band leader more on par with Prince than anyone else – from the fuzzy grooves of opener \u201cDevil\u2019s Haircut\u201d to the party-stomp of \u201cMixed Bizness\u201d and the plaintive emotion of \u201cLost Cause,\u201d Beck was all things to all people, strutting and dashing over a stage that looked like a spaceship\u2019s deck in some psychedelic universe. In one of the weekend\u2019s few surprise performances, Gary Numan returned to the stage for a performance of \u201cCars\u201d that was right at home with some of Beck\u2019s more keyboard-driven freakouts like \u201cWow\u201d and \u201cE-Pro, and as Day 2 came to a close with Odelay<\/em> hit \u201cWhere It\u2019s At,\u201d it was a fitting end if ever there was one, as the only place to be was right-freaking-there in the middle of Douglas Park for one of the most memorable days in Riot Fest history.<\/p>\n

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By Christopher David In recent years, has there been a more representative day of what Riot Fest can offer than Saturday? Probably not. Showcasing everything from rock n\u2019 roll\u2019s most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}