#steve diggle | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sinceileftyoublog · 9 months ago

Text

Riot Fest 2024: 9/20-9/22

Rob Zombie

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Yeah, the difference in genres over each of the three days at this year's Riot Fest was as palpable as the heat on Friday and Saturday and the rain on Sunday. No worries, though: Riots come in all shapes and sizes, styles and structures, sounds and spirits. Here were my favorite lucky 13 sets from last weekend.

Drug Church

Even though it was the hottest part of the day, Drug Church vocalist Patrick Kindlon repeated one main request throughout the Albany post-hardcore band's set: "Fucking move." The crowd obliged, enamored with the way Nick Cogan, Cory Galusha, Chris Villeneuve, and Patrick Wynne's crunchy grungy sound complemented Kindlon's hoarse scream. Whether Drug Church was playing old songs, like Cheer highlight "Unlicensed Guidance Counselor, rife with Mascis-esque guitar squalls, or the high-pitched bounce of "Myopic" from the quintet's upcoming PRUDE (Pure Noise), fans moshed and crowd surfed. What route they exactly took was often based on humorous instruction from Kindlon, thick New York accent and all: "This one's not for the circle pit; it's for coming over the barrier," he clarified before "Million Miles of Fun". Best, it's not like he was giving demands from a throne. Kindlon himself was probably worse off than anyone in the crowd, having declined sunscreen and worrying about forgetting the words of new song "Slide 2 Me". "The band has a pact," he said before they closed their set with "Weed Pin". "Even if I get attacked or have a stroke on stage, they don't stop." With dedication like that, it was easy for the rest of us to bring the energy.

Drug Church's Patrick Kindlon

Sum 41

"Thank you for putting up with our stupid bullshit," Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley said to the crowd during the middle of a cover of Queen's "We Will Rock You". Yes, the band who is calling it quits, who had every opportunity to play a deep cut for the diehard fans, used one of their twelve songs in their hour-long slot on a breakneck pop punk version of maybe the most recognizable rock song ever. The choice and its ensuing performance was Sum 41 in a nutshell: earnestly moronic, surprisingly technically deft, ultimately undeniable. Though their most recent and last-ever album Heaven :x: Hell (Rise) is strong, they played only its spritely lead single "Landmines", opting instead to burn through their underratedly massive back catalog of hits, replete with pyrotechnics, Dave Baksh and Tom Thacker's tit-for-tat lead guitar interplay, and Frank Zummo's massive double kick drums. The crowd ate it up, jumping up and down to the rhythmic bounce of "Underclass Hero" and "In Too Deep" and singing along to every word of "Fat Lip". By the time the band got to their final song, "Still Waiting", Whibley requested no more fire, wanting to connect with the crowd: "Just us, you, and the music." He didn't mention lights, though, so who was he kidding? As soon as the chorus hit, strobes chaotically moved along to Zummo's drum fills, providing, for the last time, more gloriously stupid bullshit from a band we're all going to miss more than we know.

The Offspring

At what Home Depot did The Offspring get that blow-up skeleton? The California punk band came to Douglass Park to show off their love for the very breakout album that donned a bony buddy on its cover, Smash, celebrating it's 30th anniversary this year. The full album set featured very little banter and a load of piercingly loud sounds: Noodles' razor guitar leads, Brandon Pertzborn's well-done-meaty snares, and of course, Dexter Holland's shrill scream-sing. The band did take a break to show, on the stage's screens, clips from old interviews about the band and Smash, including how, "You gotta keep 'em separated" was sung by a friend of the band, as well as the punk scenes they've been a part of throughout their career. And though Smash still holds up front-to-back, The Offspring recognize that classics, too, can change with time, so they skipped over "Self Esteem" so they could play it at the end of their album set before a three-song encore of later-career tunes. There may not be anything new to say about their best album, so The Offspring have merely decided to give the people what they want.

The Marley Brothers

At the Cabaret Metro stage, Fall Out Boy was lighting off fireworks, and I could audibly hear every snap, crackle, and pop in the distance and see smoke rising from the corner of my eye. Normally, that would bother me, but I was otherwise transfixed by the singers and instrumentalists right in front of me, letting the grooves do the talking. The Marley Brothers, Bob Marley's sons Stephen, Ziggy, Julian, Ky-Mani and Damian, traded off and performed some of their father's hits and deep cuts, like protest songs "Get Up, Stand Up", "Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock), and "I Shot The Sherriff", the pure "Three Little Birds", and dub masterpiece "Positive Vibration". Their gravel-throated, weary rasp made them dead ringers for their father; the band, backing vocalists, and posse member spending the whole set waving a giant Jamaican flag made the closing set a full-on show, just as deserving of headlining status as the local kids across the park.

The Marley Brothers

Buzzcocks

Few songs on Singles Going Steady pass the three-minute mark, so it was cool to see the Buzzcocks, almost a half-century since they formed, play around with dynamics during their Saturday afternoon set. Sure, you knew what you were gonna get with the slinky bass of "Why Can't I Touch It?" and "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)", but the band unexpectedly added a big jam and lots of distortion to "Harmony in My Head". Last weekend was their first time back in Chicago since founder Pete Shelley passed away, let alone releasing their first album without him, Sonics in the Soul (Cherry Red), so Steve Diggle got to both pay tribute and show his abilities as full-time lead vocalist. He passed the test, especially on the new tunes like "Senses Out of Control", his echoing, nasal sneer sounding kind of like Bob Mould with a British accent. Just like Mould, Buzzcocks keep growing instead of resting on their laurels.

Buzzcocks' Steve Diggle

The Hives

You know you're getting older when you watch The Hives and think to yourself, "How is Howlin' Pelle Almqvist not perenially injured?" Jumping around on the stage and in the crowd, motion restricted by a fitted suit, seems like a recipe for back problems, or at least plantar fasciitis! Misplaced anxiety aside, watching Sweden's preeminent garage rock revival band continues to reward, almost 25 years after they broke out with Veni Vidi Vicious. The band did play a few tunes from their most recent record The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons (Disques Hives), whose title sees them fully embrace the (probably fictional) supposed sixth member of The Hives who is their manager and sole songwriter. I suppose it doesn't matter who writes their songs--"Hate to Say I Told You So" still rips as a catchy, jump-along anthem with the best of them.

The Hives' Howlin' Pelle Almqvist

Spoon

Move over, Pitchfork: Spoon's presence on the Riot Fest lineup mostly confirms the festival's status as the greatest harbinger of Aughts-era indie rock in Chicago. At 5:30 P.M., most everyone at Riot Fest who once owned the Red Hot compilation Dark Was the Night planted themselves for the night, ready to take in the back-to-back-to-back-to-back of the Austin quintet, St. Vincent, Pavement, and Beck. Though Spoon had their fair share of "punk"-esque moments, like set opener "Got Nuffin", the sharp "The Hardest Cut", and a stellar cover of The Cramps' "TV Set", they were an atmospheric outlier. To play "The Underdog", Britt Daniel brought out an instrument you don't often see on a stage at Riot Fest--an acoustic guitar--which started a run of shuffling and sparkly catalog highlights like "Wild" and "Inside Out". On an unusually hot September day, though, Spoon's laid-back melodies were a welcome respite. "Someone get popsicles, someone do something about the heat," Daniel sang on "Do You". With the pace of their set, he heeded his own call.

Spoon's Britt Daniel

St. Vincent

Perhaps unlike Spoon, these days, St. Vincent's sound has less in common with her early baroque pop days and skews heavily towards the industrial funk of many of her Riot Fest peers. Leading the charge were the songs on her latest album All Born Screaming (Total Pleasure): the noodling "Flea", finger-snapping "Broken Man", trip-hop vibing "Hell Is Near", reggae jamming and propelling "All Born Screaming". The one thing consistent in all of St. Vincent's material, though, is Annie Clark's guitar playing, on-point during her set. Scratchy, funky leads pervaded "Big Time Nothing", "Marrow", "Los Ageless", and "Digital Witness", Clark's unique shredding style just as mighty as the metal bands that would grace the same stage the next day.

Pavement

Though I had seen Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks before, I was psyched to see his undeniably influential primary band live in all of their silly, ramshackle glory. They didn't disappoint; even if they were on a big stage, playing to a big crowd, they still had the air of up-and-comers goofing around, raw in their loud-quiet-loud dynamism on "Cut Your Hair" and psychedelic jamming on "Box Elder". Scott Kannberg, aka "Mr. Spiral Stairs," got to take the lead on his "Date w/ IKEA", while the only person cawing louder than the guy behind me during the chorus of "Unfair" was Bob Nastanovich. The band played their first ever RIAA-certified song "Harness Your Hopes", which, in true Pavement fashion, is not even on a full-length album, and they ended their set with the anti-climactic "Stop Breathin", as if to make a statement to the crowd that they're still the same wonderfully messy band all these years later.

Beck

Beck's live sets are somewhere between Pavement and a band like Nine Inch Nails: pure professionalism, sometimes disguised as spontaneous. During his headlining set Saturday night, his and his band's performances of Odelay untouchables like "Devils Haircut" and "The New Pollution" were no-notes perfect. His retreat into acoustic Sea Change heartbreak sported a beatific, melancholy sheen. Really, it was the songs from his early and later catalog that provided him the most opportunity for the unexpected or the new, whether it was "Girl" trading in its electronic blips for garage surf rock or extended bluesy guitar and harmonica preceding "Loser" and "One Foot in the Grave", respectively. Moreover, Beck's funky tunes hit the hardest live. "E-Pro"'s outro adopted a swinging, metal might, while the unbridled horniness of the Midnite Vultures songs got the crowd moving the most. Yeah, I'm crossing my fingers for a 30-year-anniversary Midnite Vultures set at Riot Fest 2029.

SPRINTS

"I'm like Slayer's gayer cousin," joked SPRINTS lead vocalist Karla Chubb to a crowd waiting out the rain all day to see their favorite metal band's first show since disbanding five years prior. Her words were funny, but they rang true coming from a Dublin band who has more than their fair share of experience forcefully trudging through non-ideal weather. Playing from their great debut album Letter to Self (City Slang), Chubb, Colm O'Reilly, Sam McCann, and Jack Callan gave a masterclass in building tension that exploded into shouted harmonies, heavy guitar and bass, and limber drums.

SPRINTS' Sam McCann

Tierra Whack

Philadelphia rapper Tierra Whack's music is innovative, concise, and moving. It's also absurd at times, which is why I shouldn't have been at all surprised at her DJ's idiosyncratic choice of tunes to pump up the crowd, ranging from the appropriate (Kendrick Lamar's "m.A.A.d. city", Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On") to the lovelorn (Paramore's "Still Into You") to the absolutely head-scratching (Coldplay's "Viva La Vida".) As soon as Whack entered the stage, though, it was clear her set was going to contain all of these qualities. Her infectious energy helped the crowd turn up on "CHANEL PIT". In turn, the support of the crowd helped her remain earnest and vulnerable on "SNAKE EYES". I, however, as an appreciator of deft impersonators, was most wowed by the songs that emphasized her throaty, persona-transforming delivery, like "BURNING BRAINS" or Lil Yachty's "T.D", the latter of which proved she's one of the best live emcees in the game.

Tierra Whack

Rob Zombie

Chalk this one as the set of the weekend I was most surprised to enjoy, just because I've never gotten that into Rob Zombie the solo artist, filmmaker, or even member of groove metal legends White Zombie. For one, his ghoulishly muscular voice sounded pristine, tangible amidst the bombast of his stage setup. Live, I really got an appreciation for the hooks of the clubby "What Lurks on Channel X?", brawny "Demon Speeding", and buzz-sawed White Zombie hit "More Human Than Human". Bonus points for doing "Well, Everybody's Fucking in a U.F.O.", which sounds like the best messed up barnyard jam Primus never wrote.

Rob Zombie

3 notes · View notes