Same, he was great in 2021 but The Smiths is what the people want and is insanely hype worthy. The Misfits announcement in 2016 blew people’s minds. Thank you, much appreciated. You could swap Djo with Hayley, then have another high quality act fit the Smiths stage. But there’s just something about Morrissey and Hayley playing on the same day that makes sense to me. This year’s lineup is already looking promising and hope the headliners are a change of pace from the last two years. Slayer is cool but this year would have been better for them to headline instead of 2024.
FWIW, social media signs are pointing toward Jesse Michaels doing something for the Asian Man Records anniversary show series at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco (9/3-9/5). The line-up for that show isn't getting released in advance. Vague post from Matt Skiba with him and Jesse just sitting/talking about "things of great importance." The one ASM release Jesse has is Classics of Love so it's probably that. But still - something to keep an eye on as a Classic of Love and/or Common Rider reunion at Riot would be awesome as hell!
That would be a nice consolation prize for still not getting any Op Ivy reunion. I’m kind of hoping that they just let RBF have a stage so that we can finally have a ska stage. That’s probably a pipe dream though.
Classics of Love would be really great, though significantly less of a draw than even Common Rider. I'll take any Jesse project, really, TBH. I'm honestly thinking, if anything, he's just doing the ASM anniversary show and that'll be that. But there's the fanboy, tinfoil hat side of me that hopes the "unannounced line-up" has a surprise set or something beyond the obvious speculations (Alk3, Larry Arms, Joyce Manor, Jeff Rosenstock). Kinda like how Jawbreaker did a small/secret show ahead of Riot... But that feels like a massive stretch. Hah. I'm honestly not sure RBF is big enough to be a stage-closer even with it being a "reunion" of sorts. I guess they could still have Sublime or something like that for a similarly themed stage. But I wouldn't bank on it. At this point I'm sort of expecting they'll just get slotted in with punk/pop-punk if they're on the bill. Want to be wrong, though!
That was my initial thought/hope, having Sublime have a stage similar to the NOFX stage in 2024 (though I'm a bit conflicted with Sublime these days). IF they did 3 days, it could be a Sublime self-titled album play one day, the new album another day, and 'greatest hits and friends' another day. They surely would have enough bands to fill the stage and you could get a lot of crossover if it were a RBF stage. But, I do think it's unlikely.
I don't see them being a big enough draw to warrant three days. A desire for a new album/greatest hits set goes away once you build in a S/T album play for the majority of people, TBH. So maybe a stage closer for a single day but just not feeling it across days.
And as to ska reunions at the Asian Man Records anniversary show: Slapstick reunited for the 15th anniversary, so it wouldn’t be the first time they got an awesome reunion before anyone else.
The email says "Maybe there's a reason prices are increasing soon." Very odd to increase prices before the line-up drop like that. But I guess they could get people to panic-buy at a slightly higher cost? This almost makes me feel like it's coming tomorrow. But why not just say that outright in the email. So probably not. Strange either way.
Maybe if there is a big get or a surprising reunion they’ll announce that band, sell some tickets, and then drop the rest of the lineup a bit later
The fact that Slapstick will never happen again is such a bummer. I skipped their set at Riot Fest 2012 in favor of somebody else because I assumed they would be doing more shows... But then Brendan Kelly had to go and embarrass his bandmate on-stage and they haven't talked since/won't do it without that person. I love the imagery this put in my head. A redux of the 2016 announcement. A video that's just static with clips of songs you can barely make out heard through the noise... And at the end, as the static fades, a familiar logo/mascot emerges. Half a second of the bass intro to "Sound System" plays through the static before fading out completely. Regardless, that would be a fun idea. Roll out the headliners (or a single big act) then release the rest of the line-up next week. That would be pretty fun.
We will see if prices actually increase. They have said the so many times in the past and they never actually increase
Also, The Format and The Get Up Kids, if we're getting them, will be on Sunday. Added a second MN show on the 18th.
you know we are getting close when the people of reddit are getting progressively angrier by the day and threatening to go to a different fest instead.
Not a ton of crossover as far as I can tell but probably takes a few bands out of the running (Spitalfield, Wild Pink, Kerosene Heights)
I'm perpetually confused by the people who claim to be deciding between Louder Than Life and Riot. LTL is a hard rock/metal fest with a few pop-punk stages (loaded with bands who tour regularly). Riot is the inverse. I just find it hard to envision the type of person who would have to choose between those two things... I kinda get the Shaky Knees thing. Because, while there's not a lot of crossover year-to-year, if you look at it holistically a lot of Shaky knees artists will do Riot one year and SK the next (or vice-versa) on an album cycle. The anger/frustration about it all is what gets me, though. It's got a lot of "Karen" energy behind it. LOL
To be fair LTL this year has 40+ bands that have played Riot before and only expect that number to go up once the lineup is out. This year essentially has an entire Riot Fest lineup within the LTL lineup.
Yeah, that I understand much. It's the energy and negativity behind it that I can't wrap my head around. I'm not saying there's no overlap but from what I've seen they both offer distinct aesthetics, experiences, etc. I just think the number of people who are sitting there, twiddling their thumbs and trying to decide between the two is much smaller than people on the Internet are thinking (acknowledging too that it's also likely bigger than I'm thinking LOL). There's maybe 1-1.5 stages per day of pretty standard Warped Tour(ish) punk/hardcore/alt-punk stuff. Like I said, there's obvious overlap but it feels pretty small in the grand scheme of what LTL is offering up.