REVIEW: The Spirit of Punk Lives on at Riot Fest 2026
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photos by Heriberto Gallegos
RIOT FEST GOT DIRTY AND CHICAGO LOVED EVERY MINUTE — Riot Fest returned to Chicago’s Douglass Park September 18-20, transforming the West Side into a three-day celebration of punk and alternative music. True to the festival’s DIY roots, Riot Fest brought together generations of boundary-pushing artists, legendary acts and emerging voices, creating a lineup that felt both nostalgic and forward-thinking.
Anchoring the weekend were a collection of heavyweight headliners spanning decades of alternative music. The festival welcomed punk icon and genre grandfather Iggy Pop, industrial metal titans Tool, Pierce the Veil, Twenty One Pilots and Alanis Morissette. Iconic acts including the All-American Rejects, Pixies and Alkaline Trio brought their respective eras of alternative and punk history to the festival, while longtime Riot Fest favorites GWAR delivered the theatrical mayhem of the weekend.
Women in punk and alternative music also commanded a powerful presence throughout the lineup. Patti Smith — known as one of punk’s most influential pioneering figures — brought her enduring artistry to Douglass Park, while artists including DeathbyRomy, Violet Grohl and Bratmobile added their own imprint to the weekend. From Bratmobile’s foundational feminist punk legacy to DeathbyRomy’s darker, genre-defying take on alt-pop, Riot Fest showed that punk has never been confined to one sound or generation.
Rain-soaked crowds continued to pack the grounds, navigating puddles and mud between sets while refusing to let the conditions and weather delays on both Saturday and Sunday derail the weekend. Before long, the mud mosh pits erupted among festivalgoers and mud wrestling elevated the chaotic energy.
It was messy and completely on-brand.
While the festival has grown immensely from its DIY punk beginnings, its spirit remains rooted in the idea that live music is communal and a little dangerous around the edges.
Friday, September 18
As the opening band of the weekend, Glixen’s debut Riot Fest performance offered an immediate introduction to the atmospheric intensity of the modern shoegaze renaissance. Droning guitars washed across the park while ethereal vocals floated above the distortion, creating a hazy, immersive soundscape that felt simultaneously intimate and enormous. At the center is lead vocalist Aislinn Ritchie, whose vocals float effortlessly above the guitars, maintaining an almost delicate softness even as the music beneath her swells into towering waves of distortion. Rather than attempting to recreate the shoegaze sounds of the past, Glixen are part of a new generation reshaping what the genre can be. Their sound preserves the dreamlike qualities that made shoegaze so enduring while injecting it with a modern heaviness that felt perfect for Riot Fest.
Endless mosh pits erupted as Washington, D.C.-based punk duo Teen Mortgage made their arrival on the Riot Fest stage. Diving into the first song, Teen Mortgage commanded the stage with the grit that has become the heart to their sound. The duo tore through standouts from their recent album, Devil Ultrasonic Dream, bringing the record’s abrasive energy to life. Teen Mortgage used the stage as a platform for protest, addressing systems of oppression, U.S. government policy, wars overseas and the government silence surrounding Palestine. At Riot Fest, Teen Mortgage reinforced its platform to provoke, protest and resist.
Fresh off the release of her new album Be Sweet to Me, Violet Grohl took the stage by storm, delivering a memorable performance that revealed the full breadth of her evolving sound. Moving effortlessly between the quiet, dream-pop end of the spectrum and something far more angsty, snarling and aggressive, Grohl transformed the stage into an atmospheric world all her own. She opened the set with “Stimulant Breakfast.” From there, Grohl moved into “Cool Buzz” and “Last Day I Loved You.” Grohl’s softer moments carried the ghostly, hypnotic atmosphere of Mazzy Star, while the darker turns of the set evoked the surreal, dreamlike imagery associated with David Lynch.
Fleshwater brought the atmospheric weight of 2000: in Search of the Endless Sky to Riot Fest, delivering a set immersed in shoegaze’s dreamlike haze and the visceral force of early-2000s alternative metal. Has Fleshwater moved through standouts including “Endless Sky,” “Kiss the Ladder” and “Closet.” In a surprise tribute, Fleshwater honored Chicago hardcore heavyweights Harm’s Way following the passing of guitarist Bo Lueders. The gesture brought a deeply local sense of remembrance to the performance.
Alt-pop provocateur DeathbyRomy made her Riot Fest debut with a performance fueled by glamor, grit and an industrial-metal intensity that immediately commanded attention. From the moment she stepped onstage, DeathbyRomy was impossible to look away from. Her fierce presence and bewitching energy carried throughout the performance as she moved between the stage and barricade, engaging directly with the crowd and singing alongside fans. Romy tore through fan favorites from her HOLLYWOOD FOREVER album, including “PRAY TO ME” and “LITTLE DREAMER.” Her performance carried the energy reminiscent of 90s industrial metal. Heavy guitars and aggressive production collided with her commanding vocals. She also gave Riot Fest attendees a glimpse into what comes next with “LONELIEST GIRL,” offering a preview of her upcoming album. By the end of the performance, Romy told the crowd they were officially part of her “Team Death” fan base, turning an already enthusiastic audience into something resembling a collective.
The history of British punk came roaring into Douglass Park as Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter brought the band’s legendary sound to Riot Fest, delivering an hour of raw aggression and nostalgia. With Carter commanding the stage, behind him stood guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock — three members of the original Sex Pistols lineup whose work helped define the sound of U.K. punk. Carter proved to be a commanding frontman, throwing himself into the chaos while the band tore through an hour-long set. A cover of The Stooges’ “No Fun” added another layer to the set. The latter half saw the band tear through “God Save the Queen,” “No Feelings” and “Problems,” sending bodies colliding across the crowd as mosh pits multiplied throughout the festival grounds. Crowd surfers dominated the scene. Then Carter issued a call for an all-girls mosh pit. Women throughout the crowd eagerly answered. A swirling pocket of feminine rage, joy and power manifested as women took over the pit while men surrounding them cheered them on. I was part of that mosh pit, and experiencing it from within made the moment extra meaningful. The Sex Pistols closed the night with “Anarchy in the U.K.” Mosh pits stretched across the grounds, crowd surfers continued to pour forward and the energy that had been building throughout the set reached its peak.
The godfather of punk finally took the Riot Fest stage as the headliner of the festival’s opening night, and at 79 years old, Iggy Pop proved that the lust for life that has defined his career is still burning fiercely. There was no slow introduction. Pop launched straight into the abrasive, guttural force of “T.V. Eye,” immediately commanding the stage with the same confrontational energy he had in the height of The Stooges in the 70s. Throughout the set, he was interacting with his band and engaging with the crowd, repeatedly mouthing“I love you’s” toward the audience. That multigenerational connection became one of the defining elements of the performance. The rawness of The Stooges remains visceral, the songs still sound dangerous and the attitude behind them continues to resonate with audiences who weren't even alive when they were first released. Backed by a band — including a three-piece horn section — Pop delivered an intense, Stooges-heavy, hour-long set spanning 13 songs. “Raw Power” brought the full weight of The Stooges’ legacy to the stage, while “Gimme Danger” offered a darker, more vulnerable turn. “The Passenger” ignited the crowd with its instantly recognizable momentum, followed by “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “Search and Destroy.” It was heartfelt watching an artist whose influence has stretched across nearly every wave of punk music stand before a crowd that included multiple generations of people shaped by his work.
Saturday, September 19
Even as heavy rain and thunderstorms cut Riot Fest’s Saturday short, the weather did little to extinguish the energy of the crowd. If anything, festivalgoers embraced the mud, moshing through puddles, dancing in the rain and launching handfuls of mud at one another, and, at times, toward the bands onstage. Destroy Boys made their entrance with the force and unfiltered energy as they stepped into the storm and immediately met the crowd at its level, delivering a set that felt perfectly suited to the unruly conditions surrounding them. The band launched into longtime fan favorite, “I Threw Glass at My Friend’s Eyes and Now I’m on Probation.” From there, Destroy Boys maintained their momentum with a high-energy run through “Muzzle,” “Shadow (I’m Breaking Down)” and “Vixen.” Each song intensified the already feverish atmosphere, with the crowd continuing to throw themselves into the performance despite the rain. The band closed their set with “Locker Room Bully.”
Australian punk band The Chats brought a dose of feral 70s punk energy to their set. In just 45 minutes, the band tore through 14 hard-hitting songs. The Chats ripped through “Panic Attack” and “Struck by Lightning,” keeping the crowd moving from beginning to end. Fans sang along as the band leaned fully into the song’s cheeky, Australian sense of humor. The band saved “Pub Feed” for the finale, ending their set with one final blast of high-energy.
Sunday, September 20
After heavy rains pummeled the Chicago area overnight and into Sunday morning, Riot Fest organizers delayed the start of the festival by several hours as crews worked to clean up the grounds at Douglass Park. But with rain continuing throughout the day, there was little the festival could do to stop the park from transforming into a sprawling landscape of mud, sludge and waterlogged pathways. Festgoers struggled to navigate between stages, shoes were swallowed by the ground and mud pits began erupting across the park.
For hardcore band Haywire, the chaos only seemed to amplify the energy. The band drew a large and dedicated crowd that appeared ready to embrace whatever Riot Fest could throw at them. Fresh off a strong run of shows following their signing with Roadrunner Records, Haywire arrived with something to prove. Frontman Austin Sparkman led the charge with an unrelenting stage presence. Heavy two-step jams powered the performance as Haywire tore through fan favorites including “Get to Steppin’” before launching into “Haywire.” Sparkman eventually dove into the audience, collapsing the already-thin barrier between performer and fan. The emotional center of the set arrived with “Love Song” and “Always by My Side,” the latter dedicated to Bo Lueders of Chicago hardcore heavyweights Harm’s Way.
The godmother of punk, Patti Smith, stepped onto Riot Fest’s rain-soaked stage and delivered one of the weekend’s most stirring performances — a set rooted the power of protest. Smith began by offering a heartfelt thank you to Chicago, repeatedly acknowledging the city as the place of her birth and expressing her gratitude for returning to perform. Even the rain became part of the story. Smith joked that she has always had bad luck with the weather, noting that she was born in the middle of a snowstorm. She opened with the commanding “People Have the Power,” setting the tone for a performance centered on collective action and hope. With the rain continuing to fall around the festival grounds, Smith called for peace and love within the community. She moved through “Pissing in a River” and “Break It Up,” balancing poetry with her signature punk intensity. Smith introduced “Peaceable Kingdom.” She explained that she and her band had written the song 23 years ago in honor of the Palestinian people, and expressed her hope for liberation for Palestine as loud “Free Palestine” chants from the crowd broke out.. Later in the set, Smith had also delivered two of her most beloved songs, “Because the Night” and “Horses.” She ultimately closed with The Who’s “My Generation,” bringing the performance full circle.
