We’re midway through the final day of Riot Fest 2025 and Prospect Heights native Ben Foster, frontman of Screeching Weasel, is about to snatch rhetorical defeat from the jaws of victory as his band turns in a tight, hard-driving set on the big Riot Stage.
Some of us are a few drinks in by this point and a light breeze is counteracting the heat of the sun. Time to find a comfortable spot and let the music wash over me like a baptism. Then the band launches into a punkified cover of “I Can See Clearly Now.” And you know what? I’ll be damned if it isn’t just the kind of bright, sunshiny day the song’s all about.
Everyone’s smiling and nodding along as Foster then takes a stand for freedom of speech, noting that he’s in the words business and he doesn’t like the government interfering in his business. Big applause. I mean, for all we know this was the speech that prompted Disney to give Jimmy Kimmel his show back the next day.
The rocking continues, and all feels right with the world. Until Foster abruptly stops the set and asks for the crowd cam operator to get a shot of a guy up front, which, wisely, the cameraperson declines to do. Foster says the guy is a man baby who obviously needs attention, so let’s all stop and look at him.
What the heck is going on to get Foster so riled up, you might ask? Well, it turns out the dude in question was silently flipping the singer the bird during the set. And Foster has had enough. First he exhorts the crowd to bodily remove the guy to the back nine. And when they start pulling him away, the guy fairly understandably takes umbrage at the strangers laying hands on him.
And then Foster has security forcibly remove the guy from the festival. For silently raising a middle finger to him.
Look, I know Ben Weasel holds no government office, but that sequence of events is so rich with irony it’s almost funny. With free speech defenders like him, who needs enemies? I mean, I might just show up at his next gig to flip him off.
Probably not, though. I kind of get it. Ben and I are the same age. I start to get cranky around day three of a music festival, too. In fact, I’d just been grumbling to myself that no matter where I stood on the grass–up close with no daylight between me and the people in front or way back where there was nothing but space or right in the middle–some group of jackholes was going to decide I was somehow in their way and jostle me getting from there to here. Get off my Douglass Park lawn!
This beautiful final day of the 20th anniversary iteration of Riot Fest was chock full of white guys of a certain age just like me and Ben. There were pretty much two models: heroin chic skinny punks and pale doughy ones, like me and Josh Caterer. His band, the Chicago area’s own Smoking Popes, celebrated the 30th anniversary of their croon-rock masterpiece Born to Quit by performing it front to back. Caterer was of good cheer, however, even throwing his cool Sugar Daddy ballcap into the crowd at the end of a set filled with ringing guitars and hooks aplenty.
And then there were the Ataris playing So Long, Astoria, though out of order and with an apologetic disclaimer that the Indiana band hadn’t played half of these songs in several years. Sounded pretty good, regardless.
Breaking the old white dude spell, the Linda Lindas were a hugely needed breath of fresh air, mixing cheerful pop-punk with some real hardcore sounds courtesy of fierce bassist Eloise Wong, who punctuated the set with a raw, powerful “Racist, Sexist Boy” that certainly captured the current national mood.
A bit later, because Chicago–in addition to being the most dangerous, degenerate city on planet Earth that we’re all just lucky to survive in–also serves up an embarrassment of cultural riches, I ducked out of the fest to catch Mr. Wolf opening Steppenwolf’s 50th season. (I chose Kate Arrington over Billie Joe, ok? Sue me.)
With a decent second wind, I then closed out Riot Fest 2025 with the last aftershow, featuring Marky Ramone, Naked Raygun and Buzzcocks at the iconic Metro. After Marky got the crowd pretty amped up with a set that could have easily been five or six songs shorter, Chicago punk icons Naked Raygun turned in a fun, raucous performance.
It was marred only by lead singer Jeff Pezzati (who sounded a lot like Pete Townshend) getting his panties in a twist after he was told to cut the set short to give Buzzcocks enough time to play. After complaining mightily about this slight, Pezzati and crew elongated the end of their last song to the point where I thought Joe Shanahan might find a vaudeville-era hook in the wings and yank him off by the neck.
By this point, it was nearly 1 am. I caught two Buzzcocks numbers–they and the audience all seemed happy–and peaced out.
Pretty good weekend overall. Happy 20th, Riot Fest. Merch suggestion for the coming decade: t-shirts proclaiming “Sucking in the 20s.” Just give me a little taste of the action, ok?
Riot Fest ran September 19-21 at Douglass Park.
Photo by Jason Pendleton
