Hey guys! I have a somewhat unconventional post for my predominantly
book related blog, but it is something that has been highly requested!
So without further adieu:
RIOT FEST REVIEW AND FESTIVAL HACKS!!
Most
of you are familiar with how often I travel and how many concerts I go
to, so today’s post is going to be a little bit of both. Over the
summer, Riot Fest, which is one of the largest punk rock music festivals
in the US, announced their lineup for their 2017 festival. At the top
of that list was JAWBREAKER. My absolute favorite band that I never
thought I would get the chance to see, considering they hadn’t performed
together in over 20 years. Needless to say less than 5 hours after
finding out that Jawbreaker was the headliner, I had purchased a ticket
along with one of my best friends, Benita. Fast forward 4 months and we
were FINALLY headed to Chicago!
We arrived on Thursday and were able to get in a little sight seeing as well as spend the day with a mutual friend, @the-book-ferret!!!
Looking back, I am so glad we decided to do most of our sight seeing on the first day because we would have been too tired to do any on Monday, after spending the weekend at the festival. After spending the day at Millennium Park, book shopping at Barnes and Noble (shout out to @the-moon-queen) and eating SO MUCH deep dish pizza, we decided to call it a night and head to bed.
On Friday, I woke up to a myriad of text messages from everyone who
felt it necessary to tell me how jealous they were of all the bands I
would be seeing over the weekend and, well, they SHOULD be jealous. The
Friday lineup alone was enough to warrant spending this much on the riot
fest ticket. After printing our tickets in the hotel lobby, we were
finally on our way to the first day of Riot Fest!!!
Entry
was super easy at Riot Fest. Actually, “easy” was a recurring theme for
the weekend. Everything was hella organized and we pretty much had no
issues with staff AT ALL. Did I mention the punctuality? No? Literally
EVERY band started no more than 5 minutes late. SRSLY GUYS, this fest
was SO ORGANIZED. One of my favorite memories of the weekend was
watching 2 middle aged drunk dudes get into a fight, knock over a HUGE
trash can, spilling ALL of the garbage in it.. and then walking away
like nothing happened; only to have a group of millennials band together
and clean ALL of it up so that the festival crew wouldnt have to. I
think this incident says a lot about the type of people who attend this
festival.
We
saw tons of bands on our first day at Douglas Park, the most notable
were New Order, NIN, and surprisingly A Day To Remember. As someone who
isnt a super fan of their music, I gotta give them credit. Their show
was WILD. Easily the most interactive of the day. They entire vibe was
super fun. We ended our night with corn dogs and nachos from one of the
stands. After that we were headed back to our hotel via a 50% off LYFT
ride, thanks to the codes that were being handed out at the exit.
Saturday
was basically PARTY day haha. We woke up, had breakfast, lounged a bit
and then decided to head to the festival. We saw even more bands on
saturday, including New Found Glory (who played ALL the old school
jams!) and Taking Back Sunday which ended the night for us. This is the
only night that we had trouble leaving the park. We ended up just
finding a spot and waiting out the LYFT line because SO MANY people were
attempting to leave at the same time, it was nearly impossible to find
your driver. If you want to avoid this, you can take the REGGIES SHUTTLE
which takes you back to Reggie’s for an after party.
Sunday
was emotional for me. I woke up an anxious MESS because it was finally
the day I was going to see Jawbreaker. I never thought this day would
come. Before our trip, when asked who I was excited to see at the
festival, I wouldn’t even mention Jawbreaker because I was terrified
they would back out at last minute and I wouldnt actually get to see
them. ANYWAY, we decided to eat at KUMA’S west loop for lunch. This is
THE BEST place to eat at during riot fest weekend. All of the burgers
are named after heavy metal bands and the crew caters to a riot fest
esque crowd anyway. Plus it was SO GOOD.
Afterward,
we took a lyft the few miles to Douglas park and saw SO MANY BANDS. The
most notable, aside from JAWBREAKER was Prophets of Rage. It was so fun
to be in the crowd with people who werent quite sure who they were and
then suddenly see it dawn on everyone that it was members of Rage
Against the Machine and Cypress Hill hahaha!! Im not even ready to talk
about how amazing Jawbreaker was. I literally dont have the words to
describe it. It was an experience unlike anything else. It felt almost
religious.. I’ll be chasing that feeling for the rest of my life.
If you’ve kept reading this far, ILY, but if not I will leave a list of pointers that really helped us below!
FESTIVAL HACKS:
- Print your tickets before hand
- Pack a drawstring backpack
- Charge up your external battery packs (these were so handy)
- Make sure to bring a PLASTIC refillable water bottle. (refill stations are around the park)
- Buy merch AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Things sell out. You dont want to miss out on your size/style
- Load up on as many LYFT/UBER promo codes as possible.
- Make sure you have a plastic poncho, non aerosol sunscreen and bug spray in your back pack. You will thank me later.
- Wear shoes that you arent super fond of. You will absolutely get anything you wear dirty. (even when it doesnt rain!)
- Check out the REGGIE’S Party bus! It could save you tons of time/money on car shares.
- Download the RIOTFEST app. You can select the bands you want to see and It will alert you 15 minutes before they start peforming and tell you the stage. It is super easy to get caught up in whatever youre doing and forget which bands youre supposed to be going to next.
- TOILET PAPER. bring toilet paper. we just grabbed the extra roll from our hotel room but trust me, ,by sunday the TP in the port-a-potties will be SCARCE and youll be so happy you brought it.
- Make sure that everyone in your group is on the same page about what your plans should be. **This isnt necessary but I promise you that you will have 10x more fun if everyone is aware of whats going on and when.
- HAVE FUN!!!
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