Riot Fest Chicago 2025 Day 2

 Saturday was family day at Riot Fest...bring the kids, they'll love the music you love, and thank you for it...eventually

Art has always been a part of Riot Fest, and this year the artists represented were top of the class. These two terrific sculptures by Emanuel Zarate were decidedly bright spots on the midway.

                                 Always cool to get the opportunity to watch an artist at work

     Southern California Surf Punk legends Agent Orange performed their 1981 release Living in Darkness on the Rebel stage. That's original (and only constant) member Mike Palm on guitar.

Nostalgic note: I have a love for Agent Orange that goes beyond the pale - for reasons. First off, they play a lot of instrumental Surf music with a Punk edge, and I am a huge fan of both Surf & Punk. Secondly, they toured up and down the west coast constantly for decades and I've been able to enjoy them in concert for over forty years, from California to Alaska. The flyer on the left is from one of my all-time favorite '80's shows (It didn't hurt that it was on my birthday and they were opening for the fabulous Fleshtones). 

    

  Bouncing Souls album play was 2001's How I Spent My Summer Vacation and they tore it up!

     Bouncing Souls are one of my sentimental favs, a reminder of days and friends gone by.                           

Probably the nostalgic/sentimental favorite of the festival: The Beach Boys w/ John Stamos!

Yes, John Stamos, Uncle Jessie his own bad self. Riot Fest had been engaged in a quirky, funny feud with Stamos since jokingly inviting him to play a reunion show with his (fictional) band Jessie and the Rippers (from the show Full House & Fuller House) back in 2013 - an invite he did not respond too, which led to over a decade of nettling and teasing from Riot Fest folks that became part of the festival's quirky personality. 

 

This year however saw the hatchet buried (with conditions that included a John Stamos look-alike concert, Riot Mike getting a Stamos tattoo, and the creation of a Greek-style pizza named after him, the Stamos Supreme, by a Chicago-area restaurant).

BTW, John Stamos has been an honorary Beach Boy for four decades, playing guitar, singing, and drumming (he is seen in the pic above behind the kit for the song Surfin' USA).

This is the Mike Love edition of the Beach Boys, which includes (other than Stamos) keyboardist Bruce Johnston (a Beach Boy since 1965), Love's son Christian on Rhythm guitar and vocals, bass/vocals by Keith Hubacher, John Wedemeyer on lead guitar/vocals, Brian Eichenberger as musical director and additional guitar/vocals, as well as Randy Leago on flute/sax/percussion, Tom Bonhomme additional keyboards/vocals, and Jon Bolton drums/vocals. 

 

There was no direct memorial to Brian Wilson during the show, but the video that played before they took the stage did feature the band's original line-up, and heck, of the 19 songs they played, 15 were written or co-written by Brian, including two of the greatest songs in Rock 'n' Roll history, Wouldn't It Be Nice and Good Vibrations. 

               Jack White's powerful guitar plowing through the White Stripes classic Ball & Biscuit

  Weezer capped off the day with a set entitled Voyage To The Blue Planet that featured the Blue album