{"id":62533,"date":"2025-09-23T11:27:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T16:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/?p=62533"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:35:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T16:35:33","slug":"review-riot-fest-20th-anniversary-2025-day-3-review-final-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/?p=62533","title":{"rendered":"Riot Fest 20th Anniversary 2025 – Day 3 Review & Final Wrap Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By C.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third day of Riot Fest 2025 ended things with a whole lot of punk, attitude, and more John<\/em> Stamos.<\/em> Chicago\u2019s legendary punks The Effigies blew through their 1984 album For Ever Grounded,<\/em> setting the tone for the rest of the day, and killer, punchy sets from Weakened Friends, Dune<\/em> Rats, and Zero Boys all followed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Things slowed down a little as a massive crowd gathered for Chicago\u2019s own Smoking Popes,<\/em> who never fail to deliver a set of tunes that are hardwired into our collective DNA as Chicago<\/em> music fans. Born to Quit in its entirety was a rare treat, and you can never hear tunes like<\/em> \u201cMegan\u201d enough times.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While the Rebel stage was plagued with sound issues and delays throughout the day, it didn\u2019t<\/em> stop the bands from giving their all, and The Ataris, playing 2003\u2019s So Long, Astoria from front<\/em> to back, had all the energy of headliners in a set that flew by. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And while Hanson saw a<\/em> significant delay, those who gave up and went to another stage missed one of several major<\/em> guest appearances in Day 3 – none other than John Stamos himself joining the brothers<\/em> Hanson for a crowd singalong of \u201cMMMBop\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Followed by Stephen Egerton of The<\/em> Descendents\u2014yes, you read that correctly\u2014 who led a cover of his own band\u2019s \u201cHope\u201d –<\/em> which, interestingly enough, he did on Friday with Blink-182, who have been covering the tune<\/em> every night on their current tour. (Is this the first time a band had the same guest on-stage to<\/em> play the same song in one weekend? It has to be, right?)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A scorcher of a set from Screeching Weasel that saw frontman Ben Weasel decrying fascism<\/em> and blasting through \u201cMy Brain Hurts\u201d and \u201cI Can See Clearly\u201d alongside many others kicked<\/em> off the second part of Sunday\u2019s roster, and the one-two punch that followed won\u2019t soon be<\/em> forgotten. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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L.A. stalwarts Bad Religion delivered one of the best sets of the weekend, and the<\/em> band managed to tear through nine tunes including \u201cFuck Armageddon, This is Hell\u201d and<\/em> opener \u201cRecipe for Hate\u201d before playing 1988\u2019s Suffer in its entirety. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was no moment of<\/em> pause between their set and what had to be one of the all-time Riot Fest sets\u2014IDLES. One of<\/em> the loudest, tightest bands you\u2019re likely to see, it\u2019s safe to say that those who didn\u2019t know<\/em> much about the British post-punkers walked away as fans. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Add another to the special guest<\/em> category\u2014Jack White coming onstage to play \u201cNever Fight a Man With a Perm\u201d was surely<\/em> one of those only-at-Riot-Fest moments. (He was also a great addition to IDLES\u2019 overall<\/em> sound\u2014Third Man collab, perhaps?)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Irish quartet Inhaler showed off why their star continues to rise, and vocalist\/guitarist Elijah<\/em> Hewson is an effortlessly charismatic, engaging frontman\u2014then again, it runs in the family, so<\/em> maybe that\u2019s not too surprising. (Look it up.) That said, Inhaler doesn\u2019t need the boost from<\/em> anyone\u2014new album Open Wide continues their run of epic-sounding albums drawing on<\/em> multiple influences, and tunes like \u201cDublin in Ecstasy,\u201d \u201cMy King Will Be Kind,\u201d and the<\/em> infectious, soaring refrain of \u201cIt Won\u2019t Always Be Like This\u201d were perfect for a festival crowd.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Much like Friday\u2019s set from Blink-182, Sunday headliners Green Day have reached heights that<\/em> are nearly unachievable by modern standards in the music industry, belonging to a class of<\/em> bands who are entrenched in the public consciousness with a diehard, iron-clad fanbase.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When you think of Green Day in the 1990s, it would have been hard to imagine them in the<\/em> same class as Metallica, U2, the Stones, but here we are, and it couldn\u2019t be more deserved.<\/em> Crushing a nearly two-hour set that drew from various eras of the band\u2019s history\u2014and on the<\/em> 21st anniversary of American Idiot, no less\u2014Green Day\u2019s set saw the hits (\u201cKnow Your<\/em> Enemy,\u201d \u201c21 Guns,\u201d \u201cWhen I Come Around\u201d), the fan favorites (\u201cJesus of Suburbia,\u201d<\/em> \u201cMinority\u201d), and rarities (\u201cGoing to Pascalaqua,\u201d \u201cThe Grouch\u201d).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All to a backdrop that normally<\/em> lives in stadiums and plenty of fireworks. Billie Joe, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool still have the<\/em> energy of teenagers, and as one would hope and expect, there were plenty of political<\/em> messages that resonated with the tens of thousands gathered in Douglass Park, with Billie Joe<\/em> changing the lyrics to opener \u201cAmerican Idiot\u201d to \u201cI\u2019m not part of a MAGA agenda.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Riot Fest 2025 is in the books – and by all counts, it was one of the best in the fest\u2019s history,<\/em> which seems appropriate given the fact that it\u2019s the twentieth anniversary and Chicago even<\/em> proclaimed September 21st as Riot Fest Day by order of the Mayor. What a long, strange trip –<\/em> let\u2019s hope we have many more!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For more on Riot Fest, click here<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For photos from Riot Fest, click here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By C.D. The third day of Riot Fest 2025 ended things with a whole lot of punk, attitude, and more John Stamos. Chicago\u2019s legendary punks The Effigies blew through their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62534,"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":[41,38,39,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-festivals","category-music-news","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62533","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62552,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62533\/revisions\/62552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}