Jessi Roti

We thought it almost wouldn’t happen, but Riot Fest 2024 pulled itself together to deliver a weekend of noise, carnival chaos, a crowd-surf wedding during Something Corporate, three consecutive nights of NoFX nobody asked for and some mud for posterity (Chicago’s weather gods had been too kind earlier this festival season, I guess).   After announcing in June that the festival would be relocating to suburban Bridgeview’s SeatGeek Stadium, the return (and, according to founder “Riot Mike” Petryshyn, passionate recommitment) to the North Lawndale neighborhood was met with fanfare and ire as some in the surrounding community continue to voice their displeasure with using the park for mega festivals.  Nevertheless, Riot Fest persisted—complete with its brand new “Choose Your Own Adventure” RiotLand experience (a bit overhyped, but hey if you like drinking games post-college, sponsored swag, photo ops and memorabilia, get in line. No seriously, stand and wait in those lines).  While there was plenty to do outside of checking out the tunes at Riot Fest these days, here are some of the best sets we caught—because live music should still be the reason you go.    Photograph: Jason Pendleton   Friday It’s obvious why the Villarreal sisters behind hard rock act The Warning have riddled off influences like Evanescence, My Chemical Romance, Guns N Roses, Halestorm and Metallica in interviews—their arena-sized riffs would make even Kirk Hammett’s jaw drop. They wasted no time getting rig

Lollapalooza returned to Chicago August 1-4 to celebrate 20 years calling Grant Park home. While the mega-spectacle is not every music fan’s favorite way to take in the sounds and sights, it’s clearly not going anywhere. These days, the festival does more to pack the park with things that ultimately distract from said music, but there is always something about Lolla; a magic that can only be conjured by spending 10 hours a day baking in 90-degree heat with total strangers.  No activations, no branded, immersive experiences–just the artists. Here are sets we loved and loathed during Lollapalooza 2024.  Thursday Photograph: Courtesy of Ashley Osborn/C3 Presents Tyla Delivering the first jolt of starpower over the long weekend, Tyla continued capitalizing on her breakthrough year with a high-energy performance. Making it all look so simple, the South African singer had the crowd moving for much more than her hit “Water.” Flanked by a team of dancers in front of a giant tiger, being transported to Tyla’s world was easy–especially under the hot sun.  As much as streaming can be viewed as “evil,” global consumption of music has massively shifted taste and influence, and Afrobeat and Amapiano have been pushing much of that behind the likes of maybe only Reggaeton as far as crossover appeal. Tyla’s pop princess infusion makes her recipe a hard one to beat.  Jungle Jungle, the dance project of London-based producers Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland, has had a banner year since th

For thousands of music fans, the third weekend in July belongs to Pitchfork Music Festival, which returned to its Union Park home on the near West Side this year with headliners Black Pumas, Jamie xx, and Alanis Morissette amongst a slew of other critical darlings and exciting upstarts.  For a festival nearing its twentieth anniversary, Pitchfork—particularly in format—hasn’t seen many changes. And I mean that in the best way. It’s remained many a fan’s favorite festival because it’s stayed lowkey, with a steadfast communal vibe that set it apart from Lollapalooza, Riot Fest and the others. You can easily find your friends, water and a porta-potty that still has toilet paper, and catch two bands that share the same start time. There was a shared sense of more access, less obstacles. And even if you had a VIP or Guest pass, you were still eventually ushered into the field of Union Park to bake under the summer sun to catch the actual acts. No shady, posh cabana for you.  It was always, despite the publication’s reputation for pretension (back when anyone cared about music criticism), the least pretentious aspect of its existence. Until this year.  Sure, some liquor brands had larger footprints on the grounds this year compared to last. Espolon Tequila’s Mercado, for example, made the most of its more immersive space—offering shady respite in addition to an array of traditional, Mexican candies to snack on, a patchwork station to customize totes, tables to play dominos and high

Yeah, I said it. Riot Fest is Warped Tour for elder millennials—complete with a skate ramp—and the last bastion of whatever an “alternative rock” music festival looked like for Gen X and hip Boomers. So much for no nostalgia in punk. It now revels in it.  The festival and carnival returned to Douglass Park for its 17th edition with headliners The Cure, Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service and Foo Fighters. Since returning post-pandemic, it’s faced continued—and increasingly contentious—pushback from residents of North Lawndale and Little Village. Walking down California Avenue, protest posters listing headliners as “Yte [a stylization for ‘white’] Punks,” “The Displacements” and “Too Many Cops,” just to name a few, decorated streetlight posts and newspaper boxes outside of the Pink Line station, while “Real Punks H8 Riot Fest” and “Go Back to the Burbs!!” were spray-painted on the fencing down Ogden Avenue. They’re refrains the fest has heard since it first relocated to Humboldt Park from the shuttered Congress Theater. Still, it has persevered when other festivals once also housed by Douglass Park, such as Lyrical Lemonade and Heatwave, have moved on. This year in particular, organizers pointed to what they view as concerted efforts to more fully embrace the community it disrupts for a solid month annually (not factoring in post-fest restoration, which some argue has never fully happened since the festival moved there in 2015).  Apart from the music, a slight re-organizati

Lollapalooza is a marathon, not a sprint. Walking through the gates at Grant Park on Thursday, August 3—the first of four days that swallowed downtown Chicago—it was something I wanted to shout via megaphone to the throngs of young, hyped and bedazzled attendees already running full-speed toward headlining stages, sponsored activations (of which, there seemed to be more than ever before), merch tents, and beer and cocktail gardens.  It comes with the territory. Something, I think, seasoned festival-goers (those who remember what it was like to go to an event before the days of social media) and founder Perry Farrell have seemed to finally accept. Now in its thirties, Lollapalooza is no longer the celebration of alternative music and culture it once was. Some argue it shed that skin long ago—more than half of the time, there’s too much going on and so many people waiting in line for other things, it’s barely about the music at all. But this year was the first I never heard Farrell even attempt to hold onto such sentiments in interviews. Instead, it’s fully embraced globality; curating a lineup that speaks to its last 10 years as an international festival as well as changing tastes and TikTok trends informed by those who are incredibly (literally) plugged in. I mean truly, I’ve never met so many influencers (real ones). For better and worse, the new digital age’s influence on music and the entertainment industry at-large has permanently altered things. And I have a list of ques

The thump of bass and clang of more than a few guitars echoed down Lake Street, signaling Pitchfork Music Festival had returned to Union Park. This year, weekend headliners included The Smile, Big Thief and Bon Iver, and the promise of some serious music discovery with mid-day performers such as Grace Ives, Koffee and Soul Glo—to name a few.  While everyone in the city knew (deep down) that the weekend really belonged to Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour (and arguably Barbie), Pitchfork Fest—now in its 17th year—managed to keep its signature taste-making universe intact. Even despite a very Condé Nast sponsorship hawking “smart, preventative” facial filler consultations to Millennials and Gen Z in exchange for sitting in air-conditioning and receiving pink-themed beauty treatments … to which someone said, “This is still the land of hipsters. There are no ‘smile lines.’ Some of these people haven’t smiled in years.” One thing that did feel immediately different this year compared to Pitchforks’ past, at least for this writer (who hadn’t been back since pre-pandemic)? Its expanded family-friendliness. Everyone brought their babies. No seriously, when did everyone have kids and how are they so big already? The Kid Zone by Music House takeover on the lawn was real and adorable, no matter its proximity to folks sparking blunts before hitting the food vendors. Despite an emergency evacuation on Saturday due to lightning nearby and a peppering of weather delays robbing everyone of wh