Riot Fest 2025 Tour • Page 50

Overall thoughts:

- Love the headliners, honestly. Big fan of all three top bands, especially with Weezer playing Blue Album which I haven't seen yet, but also cool with missing Blink for a subheadliner, like Weird Al.

- Top bill has lots of awesome gets. Weird Al, Sex Pistols, IDLES, Knocked Loose, Jawbreaker, The Academy Is, Cobra Starship, The Wonder Years and James are all super exciting. I also listened to Rilo Kelly for the first time on my drive over to my girlfriend's place today and holy shit they're AWESOME??? Also would love to squeeze in Alkaline Trio, Dropkick Murphys, Bad Religion, and The Hold Steady if I'm able.

- Anyone have recommendations of where to start with Texas is the Reason?

- Not a TON I'm psyched about in the undercard, but obviously need to listen to more bands. Would love to see Rico Nasty, Militarie Gun, Touche Amore, Smoking Popes, Shonen Knife, Big Ass Truck, Cliffdiver, and Emo Philips though! Taking recommendations for others!

 

If you like Cliffdiver you should check out Harrison Gordon. They opened for the Free Threw anniversary show and killed it. Definitely on the way up.

 

Mac Sabbath is the new GWAR.

That would dope. It's the 25-year for Astray this year...

They're an easy one because their discography is only like, 13-14 songs... Do You Know Who You Are? is everything.

 

Chicago Teen Praying Riot Fest’s Lineup Includes Reunion of His Divorced Parents

 

Yellowcard and Harms Way have been removed from the playlist.

 

on another note, the yearly tradition of having an actor band is alive and well, this time with options - jenny and blake from rilo kiley, weird al for the UHF heads, and stamos if he is playing with beach boys.

 

Weird. Wonder if they will be added later on or if they were initially booked and plans fell through

 

I may be in the minority here, but I feel like a permanent Mac Sabbath/GWAR trade has a chance of being a net positive (assuming Mac Sabbath puts on a good show). While the production value is legitimately impressive, the more over-the-top offensive parts of GWAR’s stage show were feeling a little bit more gross/out of touch each year, even if the content itself was more or less consistent in its level of offensiveness.

 

No Norman Brannon with TITR is a bummer.

 

20 albums plays I guess. I see Victim of Pain by Agnostic Front, and Vicious Circle by Zero Boys in the image besides Weezer's Blue Album

 

I can see Copacetic by Knuckle Puck and Almost Here by The Academy Is…

Would absolutely love to have No Closer to Heaven by The Wonder Years or So Long Astoria by The Ataris.

 

Sex Pistols and Texas Is the Reason too, I assume, since they just have one album each.

 

Someone tell me if I’m wrong- but for all the worry every year that Riot Fest can’t afford a certain headliner because it doesn’t have “Lollapalooza money”, I think at this point we should have an honest conversation about the fact that it *might* have Lollapalooza money.

We know that both Green Day and Foo Fighters are Lolla sizes acts and Riot was able to get them. Now obviously Lolla has *more* of those sized acts every year… but they balance them out with the bottom half of the lineup being acts no one has ever heard of and honestly might’ve paid to be on the lineup.

looking at this riot lineup, they not only delivered us 2 Lolla headliner sized acts, but they did it in a way that we’re still getting relevant acts even in the last two rows.

looking to the future, I think we can expect Riot to book whatever acts they want & that are accepting offers. Could there be a Metallica year? At this point sure, why not. Could they do an out-of-left-field rap act like Tyler the Creator? Yes. And if there’s any amount of money that would make a band like Op Ivy or The Smiths to reunite, Riot Fest will eventually make it happen.

 

Agreed, but I also understand and respect why he is not doing it

 

Hoping that Pony Express Record is somewhere in there

 

I more or less agree with every part of that except there being a chance of a Smiths reunion lol If anything, Talking Heads are more likely (still not likely).

 

I see How I Spent My Summer Vacation by the Bouncing Souls in there too! Top left corner is the "The Bouncing" and then "How I" is just below the word "Victim."

And given their IG post, I think we can assume that Samiam will be doing an album as well. Gonna have to think on some others that might be in the mix...

One other thing I picked up on from the Riot Mike interview today is that there's gonna be more Weird Al-related surprises/info dropping over the next few months. I really wonder what that might be as the radio people mentioned he "had his own section of the poster" (which is what they did with NOFX last year).

One other quick thing: Somebody pointed out that Friday had two clear co-headliners (Blink-182 and Weird Al in yellow; Weezer and Jack White both in blue) but only one for Sunday suggesting there might be one more sub-headliner for Sunday. Personally, I think it's just that Green Day will have a longer set time so there's no need but... I guess we'll see tomorrow?

 

I missed the Dookie/American Idiot tour so I’m really hoping they do it.

 

With Riot wanting to get to twenty album plays, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are actually playing two days and playing different albums each day. They have already done multiple albums so many times that it isn’t that big of ask compared to a lot of bands.

 

Obviously his tour schedule prevents it but I really wish Weird Al was playing all three days. He even has the red, blue, and yellow line next to his name to match each headliner color.

 

I feel like the official playlist might help us out here…
You’ve got some bands where they only posted songs from these albums on the playlist:
Sex Pistols - Nevermind the Bullocks
Bad Religion - Suffer
The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
The Academy Is… - Almost Here
Texas is the Reason - Do You Know Who You Are?
The Front Bottoms - Back on Top
Knuckle Puck - Copacetic
The Damned - Damned Damned Damned
The Bouncing Souls - How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Citizen - Youth
Those Days Are Gone - Free Throw
Senses Fail - Still Searching
Militarie Gun - Life Under the Gun
Inflammable Material - Stiff Little Fingers
Pegboy - Strong Reaction

Those are what I found from artists who have more than one song from only one album on the playlist (didn’t count Honey Revenge because they only have one album)

*this is just speculation. I could be wrong.

 

Weezer is obviously doing the Blue album

 

Yeah I think the stock of Riot’s lineup will go up if they get Green Day to do those two albums again

 

I’m also curious to see stage-wise how they curate the set up. I get the feeling Dance Hall Crashers and Jawbreaker play the stage/day Green Day plays (Bay Area bands). And I get the feeling Knuckle Puck and Wonder Years play the day/stage Blink plays

I’m also thinking Camper Van Beethoven, Superchunk and The Cribs play the day/stage of Weezer/Jack White