Words and Photos: Emily Sisson/ ESOfficial Studios
Green Day Photos: Anthony Linh Nguyen
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Sunny skies and humidity flooded the park grounds in Douglas Park for the third and final day of Riot Fest. While the atmosphere of the event set the tone for a titillating experience, little did we know the day was already set to be unexpected. Concertgoers were excited to see their favorite childhood band Green Day, unaware of the many surprises and guest appearances they would witness throughout the day. The IDLES set with Jack White in the song “ Never Fight A Man With A Perm” and Cobra Starship adding in Travie McCoy & William Beckett for the song “Bring It (Snakes on a Plane)” were just a few special performances of the day. Fans that were able to witness these unexpected events were gifted with ample joy and excitement on top of the already legendary lineup they had signed up for. After all, what is Riot Fest if not exciting and serendipitous?
The Linda Lindas – brought more than just youthful energy and catchy tunes to the main stage Sunday afternoon. This wunderkind group has early on captured their already timeless sound, becoming a spectacle of sorts. They started off the set with their song “No Obligation” from their 2024 self-titled album. Immediately these ladies started rocking our socks off, with punk vibes that were nothing but organic and all encapsulating. “This is our dream line up, I know it’s probably a lot of peoples dream line up.” singer and guitarist Lucia de la Garza mentions. If you haven’t taken the time to listen and check out The Linda Lindas, not only are you missing out on a lot of good music but also the chance to catch them in their current notoriety, soon shows will be sold out, and radio hits the norm. But don’t call them inexperienced. This young group of rockers have already amassed more successful ventures than many musicians achieve in their lifetime. Within the first year of the bands conception in 2018, they had already landed a performance at LA music festival “Girlxscool”. Other soon after successes include soundtrack contributions for Amy Poehler’s movie “Moxie.” and the Netflix documentary “The Claudia Kishi Club”. As well as a debut performance on Jimmy Kimmel’s night show where they performed the song “All In My Head” and talked about the song of theirs that also went viral, “Racist, Sexist Boy”. This was the final song they performed during their Riot first set, “ We must never bow down to the racist, sexist boy!” they yell.
The Lamborghini Girls– Performed a set that was rambunctious and empowering. “Are you ready to fuck?!” singer Phoebe Lunny screams before diving into the song “Big Dick Energy”. Leaning into their female power while downing the patriarchy, the group was extremely relatable to an audience full of outraged punks ready to mosh at just about anything. The band came to the stage with a real “F**k them” attitude towards “The Big Man” as well as the US government, as well as anyone who didn’t agree with their style. The band immediately dug into their punk roots, hyping up the crowd to jump and freak out. Holding up a “Fuck ICE” shirt. Saying “Theres a lot of shit going thats been going on recently…regardless of whether were all arguing as the left, about whether we have empathy for a man who died for the very cause that got him killed… Our government does not care and they do not care about you! If that’s the UK, if that be the American government.” Singer Phoebe crawls into the crowd as everyone circles around her, she asks “Chicago so you like to have fun, do you like to dance, do you like to mosh?….Are you angry? Are you pissed off at the world?” An influx of crowdsurfers and moshing began immediately once the song resumed. As the band continued through their set you could tell this English punk rock group bled independence and power such as the lyrics reflected in the song “God’s Country”. Ending with the song “Cuntology 101” , we are reminded and educated on just some of the amazing things that are Cunty. “Healing your inner child is Cunty. Getting therapised is Cunty. Having autistic meltdowns, Cunty. Shagging behind some bins. (Cunty) ” Singer Phoebe Lunny jumped into the crowd during the final song,and returned to the stage waving her fists in the air, the band left us feeling released of emotion, but stuck on animosity.
Bad Religion – Did what they do best taking the audience for a wild ride through their discovery as well as performing a full playthrough of their album “Suffer”. Plus, revivals of songs brought back from the dead, years without having been performed. Starting off with the song “Recipe for Hate” the crowd immediately started tossing themselves over the barricade entranced by the punk rock perfection they were currently all witnesses of. Clearly there were many seasoned vets in the crowd. Drums thundering and ringing through the open field allowed for the full experience to set in. “This is the hottest show of the whole year, the first day of autumn” Greg Graffin says. The crowd Surfers never let up and it was clear a large majority of the crowd had waited all day, ,probably all weekend , just to see this set. With so many fans wearing bad religion merch cemented at the barricade, I’d go as far as to say I saw more of their shirts then Green Day. Songs like “Fuck Armageddon… This Is Hell” , “Fields of Mars” and “American Jesus” were performed in the first half of the set before just the playthrough began, and when I tell you the opening was intense; the playthrough just added another level of chaos. “Seems like some of you have fallen in love with the classics. Well, we’re going to attempt to do something here. Play our entire album, in its entirety (Laughs)…. But the title track doesn’t come in until midway through, see if you can figure out what the title of the song is. This first song is called “You Are (the Government)” , says Graffin. Both the songs “Give You Nothing” and “Forbidden Beat” hadn’t been played since before the pandemic in 2020! Even the song “How Much Is Enough?” Hadn’t been played since all the way back in 2018. Throughout the show, the band displayed backdrops in coordination with each song, simple images and subliminal iconography showed messages like a clock with the word “when” and hospital with the sign “ 1000 more fools” . The band ended with a performance of the song “Pessimistic Lines” that left audience members begging and chanting for just one more.
Green Day
Released their now 6x platinum album “American Idiot” 21 years ago, on Sunday Sep 21st, the band celebrated this milestone with a once in a lifetime performance at Douglass Park. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong was admittedly sick during this performance, but the show was no less jam packed with talent and pure nostalgia we come to know and love from this chart topping and culturally influential group. Luckily for us all, everyone saved their last bit of energy from the festival weekend just to celebrate with them as well!
Being one of the biggest punk bands to come out of the 2000’s, there was no power play less telling than starting off their set with the most popular track they had in their bag ,”American Idiot”. As OG Punks, throughout the years, the band has made many jabs at celebrities and pop culture, but nothing has ever been more in your face than their statements and messages regarding politics. Recently, Billie Joe has taken to changing the words in the song from “I’m not a part of your redneck agenda” to “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda”. Nowadays Billie Joe uses his voice to speak out about the injustice plaguing today’s government. “Do you want fascism in America? Do you want tanks rolling down the streets of Chicago? Because we’re not going to take this,”. Transitionally in the second song of the set “ Holliday” which is noticeably a very political song, he introduced it by pointing out “This song is anti-fascism!”.
“I have a really bad chest cold right now so I need a volunteer!” “She knows it? You know it, Swear to god? Ok, come up here.” Billie Joe says as he invites a fan on stage during the song “Know Your Enemy”. “Her name is Argyle!!!” he shouts. Now, in an event going down in Riot Fest history, the 16 year old Green Day fan Argyle displayed a charismatic and genuine moment screaming out the lyrics, earning a round of cheers from the thousands in the crowd. Viral admiration online followed later in the days to come. As explained in their follow up Tik Tok post, the Indiana native had actually been separated from their mother during Linda Linda’s performance,hours before, they only finally reunited with mom after being was miraculously spotted by her mother on the big screen!
“Lets light up the Chicago Sky” Billie commands during the ballad “Belivard of broken dreams”. As the faces across the field begin to light up, the melody guides a united set of humans to sway back and forth. The band’s ample discovery of recognizable tracks has transcended decades now. Punk’s unconforming to modern fashion and commercialism have all ironically conformed to the general love and interest in the band Green Day. Plus they have somehow managing to be a band who continually bridges interest between old and young with many parents oftentimes directly exposing their children to some of their first ever good music.
The band brought their “Bad Year” blimp out to cross the sky during the song “When I Come Around “ and fans all over the crowd began to lift their hands up in hopes of catching one of the many baby “Dookie“ blimps falling from its mama blimp stomach. They had officially played songs from many albums including ““Dookie “, “Insomniac” and “21st Century Breakdown”, but one song from “American idiot” was particularly fitting. Beginning with a cover of “Jack and Diane” the song “When September Ends” hit a particularly striking chord amongst the audience, causing many to choke up and shed a tear.
During the final stretch of the set, in the song “Jesus of Suburbia” Billy Joel changes the lyrics once again, this time to “From Utah to the Middle East”, highlighted by killer drum breakdowns from Tré Cool as well as beautiful harmonies from the rest of the band. “ Aw shit I’m losing my voice” says Billie, holding on just long enough to finish up the set with a bang, and lots of confetti! “This song goes out to all the LGBTQ people out there … because they are all of us, and everyone has their right to love and choose who they want to be. Always remember we will always support you and got your back and f—k the people that try to demonize other people because they are a little bit different.” he says as he transitions to “Suzie Chapstick”. The final song of the 2025 Riot Fest started with an acoustic play of the song “Chicago (That Toddlin’ Town)” which eventually transitioned into “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” . When the song was over fireworks yet again exploded in the sky, and the band walked off stage as Billie thanked the crowd. “On State Street, that great street, I just want to say. They do things they don’t do on Broadway. They have the time, the time of their life. I saw a man, he danced with his wife. In Chicago, Chicago, my hometown!”
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