By Christopher David<\/p>\n
Holy hell, it finally happened. After pandemics, political unrest, and eighteen months of mind-numbing uncertainty in the concert industry, Riot Fest has returned. Friday kicked off with one of the most underrated bands of the weekend: Swedish new wave-popsters The Sounds, and apparently, no one told them they weren\u2019t headlining, as they hit on all cylinders with \u201cSong With A Mission\u201d from 2006\u2019s Dying to Say This to You, with vocalist Maja Ivarsson cutting the figure of a straight-up rock star, dragging a cigarette in a leather jacket before leading the quintet through a near-hour of constant hooks. The Sounds\u2019 shift toward a more electro-pop vibe over their last few records wasn\u2019t as present during Friday\u2019s set, as the band focused on more guitar-heavy tunes like the anthemic \u201cNo One Sleeps When I\u2019m Awake\u201d and set closer \u201cHope You\u2019re Happy Now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continuing the trend of full-album sets, the alt-rock melting pot known as Fishbone delivered 1991\u2019s The Reality of My Surroundings in its entirety to a crowd that proved the band\u2019s chops time and again over the course of their hour-long set. Fishbone have always been a hodgepodge of styles\u2014from jazz to funk to punk to rock\u2014and Surroundings was the right album at the right time, shoving Fishbone (who had already spent over a decade hard at work) into the spotlight during the dawning days of alt-rock\u2019s commercial boom. The band\u2019s set on Friday showed just how well the music has aged and what a strong vision the band have\u2014both then and now.<\/p>\n
The return of Motion City Soundtrack was welcome indeed after the band\u2019s emergence from hiatus in 2020 was temporarily thwarted by Covid, and the band\u2019s eleven-song set dipped into a few cuts from their 2003 debut I Am the Movie before leaning into five tracks from their classic Commit This To Memory. Taking the stage to a backdrop that said YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK WE ARE (future album title?), Motion City\u2019s hour was a masterclass in the style of emo\/pop-punk they helped to define throughout the 2000s. Vocalist\/guitarist Justin Pierre was in top form, and the size of the band\u2019s crowd more than acknowledged that their return to form was much desired\u2014let\u2019s hope there\u2019s a new album on deck!<\/p>\n
In the thick of their own musical renaissance, Chicago legends The Smashing Pumpkins delivered a twenty song set that shifted seamlessly from old to new. Billy Corgan\u2014along with guitarists James Iha and Jeff Schroeder, bassist Jack Bates and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin\u2014stalked the stage, abandoning his guitar for a few choice cuts (the crunchy \u201cWyttch\u201d being the frontrunner) from the band\u2019s new album Cyr (an exercise in the kind of moody new wave that the band started out playing in their earliest days, bringing the whole thing in a weird, full circle), which fit in nicely with live rarities like \u201cCrush\u201d and \u201cQuiet\u201d (from 1991\u2019s Gish and 1993\u2019s Siamese Dream, respectively). There were numerous surprises in the Pumpkins\u2019 set, as there always are\u2014being a dedicated TSP fan has always been rewarding from a live perspective\u2014but the surprise appearance by Meg Myers\u2019 for vocal duties on the band\u2019s electro-classic \u201cEye\u201d took things to another level, and set closer \u201cUnited States,\u201d an underrated gem from the equally underrated 2007 album Zeitgeist, blew whatever minds were left intact by the end of Riot\u2019s second day of 2021.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, James,\u201d Corgan smiled at one point, \u201cyou know I\u2019m an arty fuck. And this is the point at which I might choose to play something weird. So should we play something weird, or should we play a classic?\u201d The joke became clear as Corgan and Iha delivered an acoustic version of \u201cTonight, Tonight,\u201d surely one of the finest songs ever written about Chicago. And when Corgan sang of \u2018our city by the lake,\u2019 it was impossible not to smile. Classic, indeed\u2014which could sum up the entirety of Riot\u2019s second day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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