Festival season isn’t over until Riot Fest says it is. The first day of Riot Fest 2025 kicked off in a big way at Douglass Park in Chicago, marking the festival’s milestone 20th anniversary celebration. Friday’s lineup delivered an explosive mix of punk, alternative, and emo favorites, as well as “Weird Al” Yankovic curating his own stage. From the moment gates opened, the energy was palpable as thousands of fans flooded into the park, ready to dive headfirst into a weekend of nostalgia, mosh pits, and everything that has made Riot Fest one of the biggest punk rock festivals in the country. Perfect weather set the stage for what promises to be an unforgettable anniversary weekend. Let’s dive in:
While the earliest hours of the festival were reserved for some younger names to make their presence felt, things really kicked off by the afternoon, when hardcore band Harm’s Way took over the Roots stage. The band brought the intensity, with every gutteral growl and ear-piercing scream that they could fit into 40 minutes. The Riot Fest crowd happily obliged the band, too, with pits opening up while the sun was still beating down on the park.
If we’re talking hardcore, though, one of the innovators of hardcore punk were celebrating an album over on the Rebel Stage at the same time. New York Hardcore veterans Agnostic Front used their hour to celebrate 1984’s “Victim In Pain,” even if the album was just a little bit shorter than their alotted timeslot.
“They told us ‘we want you to do an album play’ and our album’s only 15 minutes long. Then they said we could play an hour” joked guitarist Vinnie Stigma. The rest of their time, of course, was dedicated to their most popular fan favorites, and included everything Stigma playing guitar from the center of a circle pit to a Ramones cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop.” The band were celebrating a seminal album, but the crowd were very much there to celebrate the band.
Friday’s lineup on the Rise Stage was transformed into Weird Al Yankovic’s Weird World Stage, celebrating all things quirky over the history of alternative and comedy music. That included, very fittingly, eclectic innovators Sparks, who had a big crowd on hand for their 45-minute set. The brothers Mael were in fine form, on the heels of their 28th album, “Mad!,” which came out this past May. Russel Mael would galavant around the stage, greeting fans as he sang, while Ron, happily, sat at the piano and played his parts. Sparks feel like a band that you could see in any era, and they will warm your heart.
Over on the Roots Stage, Senses Fail went above and beyond to lean into being in Chicago. It was all things Ferris Bueller on Friday, with frontman Buddy Nielsen dressed in Matthew Broderick’s iconic leopard vest from the movie while the band delivered their classics. If that wasn’t enough, things wrapped up with a full-on blowout, featuring the band covering “Twist And Shout” by the Beatles, while a marching band walked out on stage with the screamo stalwarts to mimmick the Oktoberfest parade scene from the tail end of the movie. Joking aside, Nielsen did have a message in a quick aside during their set; he urged the crowd to know that in tense political times, we aren’t as divided as the news media makes it out to be.
“I hope I never have to say this again” said Nielsen. “No matter where you land on things, your neighbor is not trying to kill you.” It was a message that resounded well in the course of the day.
Chicago is a city that will take full ownership of their locals, and that was the case when Alkaline Trio returned for a homecoming set that doubled as an album play for 2000’s “Maybe I’ll Catch Fire.” The band ripped through the album, but not before they worked in a couple of other songs, including “Mercy Me,” which gave the hometown crowd a chance to sing the city’s name, to a big pop. Sometimes, it takes so little.
Of course, Weird Al Yankovic has to close out Weird Al’s Weird World, and he did that to a packed crowd, all eager to catch a glimpse at the king of parodies. A 90-minute set from Al ran the gamut of his career, including a medley filled with costume changes mid-song. Everything from “My Bologna” to “Word Crimes” made an appearance, and Al was a headliner very much worthy of taking over his own day of the festival stage.
While Alkaline Trio are on tour with Friday night headliners Blink-182, their sets would not fall back to back with the alternating main stages. Instead, one of the bands at the top of hardcore, Knocked Loose, would serve as the intermission between the bands, and a noisy one at that. Bringing some of the day’s most intense mosh pits, the band were unrelenting in 40 minutes that flew by, bringing flamethrowers, steam, and a whole lot of screaming to the Roots Stage. Their set culminated in the biggest Wall of Death imaginable, with fans hurling themselves at one another during “Everything Is Quiet Now.” Knocked Loose are very much on top right now, and they know it. It was special to catch them at what is currently their peak (for now.)
The night closed with Blink-182 doing what they do best; perform pop punk classics and talk about having sex with your mother. The band’s 90-minute set touched on just about all of their discography, leaning a little heavier on the “Take Off Your Pants and Jacket” era of their career. With Alkaline Trio on the same bill, that also presented the opportunity for Matt Skiba to once again rejoin the band, making a cameo for “Bored To Death” from the “California” album. Tom DeLonge was very much appreciative for that era, even though he wasn’t part of it.
“When I was off doing other things, Matt helped keep this band alive” he noted before ceding guitar duties to Skiba for the song. It was one of several moments in the night that DeLonge would be happy to not play guitar, as he complained about the task for much of the set. He would also ask for breaks, and Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker would refuse, launching into song after song.
DeLonge would also tease a surprise, saying that he was thinking about “the rehearsal we had” before Hoppus stopped him from spoiling it. That surprise would ultimately be Stephen Egerton from the Descendents, who joined the band for “Hope,” with DeLonge on lead vocals. He would ultimately flub the last lines of the song, but it didn’t really matter. Hoppus and DeLonge explained beforehand that the band was the only punk band that they would do absolutely anything for, and the one-off moment made for a fun joining of two generations of punk. From there, the band would finish with two of their biggest hits, “All The Small Things” and “Dammit” with fireworks exploding over Douglass Park.
Day one of Riot Fest is in the books, and there’s no shortage of exciting moments coming over the course of the weekend. Stay tuned to Breaking And Entering for more coverage of this year’s festival.