Riot Fest 2026: The Earth Gets (un) Even

Riot Fest | Chicago, IL | photos by June Jameson

My Riot Fest plan was simple. Get to Douglass Park. Get through the gates. See Sincere Engineer at 2 p.m. Begin. Everything had such a nice flow; it seemed I would have plenty of time to catch everything I wanted. Mwuahahahaha! This world is way too complicated; I should have known better.

Tom Skilling was on hand Friday at Riot Fest. Tom Skilling is The Man, a beloved weatherman that Chicago will never let retire- maybe officially, but we keep pulling him back as our muse. How often do you have a weatherman that you can yell at right in front of you because it’s raining? He let us know right then and there that rain was coming, but who cares? Chicago loves Tom Skilling. Bringing him out to announce Morrissey was a ray of sunshine. And wouldn’t you know it? The weatherman was wrong - on Friday, anyway. 

Riot Fest Saturday closed early, like a spiderweb you don’t see until you’re in it. Tool’s headlining set was fueled by deadlines and icky feelings. From what I hear, it was a defining, amazing set because of it. Maynard James Keenan was in raw form after hip replacement surgery and went on sans makeup! Afroman’s set was canceled entirely. He has performed during Hurricane Katrina, but ya know. The overabundance of caution sent the crowds home, but they did manage to stay open after all, a strange consolation prize for the faithful. I wasn’t there to experience all that tho; I am a working stiff who was photographing a cross-country meet and then a homecoming game, so I had a taste of the mud but an even deeper hunger to get some Riot Fest in me.

So they pushed back Sunday gates and shortened Sunday’s set times in hopes of “remediating the moistness.” Remediating the moistness?! Impossible. Or just crazy enough to work? It rained all day. The mud won. All this meant Sincere Engineer moved to 2:35, which meant I was probably still getting a ride over from Reggies at approximately the moment I had originally intended to be standing in front of Sincere Engineer.

The day became something else entirely. This is the particular genius of a festival, assuming you are willing to surrender your fantasy of controlling it. You enter with a schedule, a map, a list of bands, a carefully calculated sequence of movements. You have made your little paper civilization. You know where you are going.

Then the Earth says no.

By the time I got inside, The Beths were taking the first stage I saw. Their set was supposed to begin at 3:40, so off we went. The Beths, “Future Me Hates Me” was a guarantee with how this day had begun. But it sounded so good, and the harmony was so entrancing; there was something almost offensively sincere about the gratitude coming from the Beths. A genuine Kiwi fondness for the people who had stuck it out through the weather. How could you say no? They were wonderful. There were still green patches of grass to leapfrog between. How were we to know what was just over the horizon? This is Lorelei was supposed to start at 4:15 but at that point, I was lost in the mud sauce.

Meanwhile, the audience had divided itself into two primary species.

The Armored with Masks. Ponchos. Hoods. Plastic. Waterproofing. Civilization's final defensive posture. And the Fuck-Its. Jorts. T-shirts. It was maybe seventy-two degrees. It's not really that bad. Man, they looked like they were having fun. 

Somebody in jorts insisting the rain is fine gives the internal thumbs up that if they can do it, so can you. There was a fella holding a sign walking through the crowd that said, “Emotional Support Rioter: Need a Hug?” He was moving pretty quickly as we all were like ants in a disturbed habitat. Apologies for not grabbing a photo of him. Or a hug for myself. 

People jumped in the rain to accompany the music. Not metaphorically. Actually jumping. Dedicated little acts of percussion performed by several thousand wet people who had accepted that they were already wet and therefore might as well make something of it.

Then Pennywise beckoned. Penny-fucking-Wise!

My original plan died somewhere between the gate and the mud. Travel times doubled. Set times got cut in half. The beautiful mathematical architecture of Riot Fest became useless. Just gonna go with it. How great is a festival for exactly that reason?

You enter and become temporarily ungoverned. The schedule is merely a suggestion. The map is an argument. The bands are landmarks. You follow the sound and occasionally discover that you have no idea where you are. If you get confused, listen to the music play…

Pennywise played Nirvana. “Never met a wise man. If so, it's a woman”
With the Sunday schedule that included Patti Smith and Alanis Morissette, it was just perfect. The femme spirit sang out like a song to Mother Earth everywhere. 

Pennywise played Pennywise, off Pennywise by Pennywise, because, of course, they did. Raise up your middle fingers and feel the spirit of Riot Fest!

Someone somewhere said Free Palestine. The Descendants have zero problem screaming “Fuck Trump” from the stage. Sundays at Your Place had already said it. The chalk drawing on the sidewalk said it. The words stayed in the air. “All your tears were not in vain. Never be the same. Children and the innocent.”

Music is an atmospheric pressure. You don't have to agree about everything to understand that the people standing around you have brought their lives into the field with them. Music and politics can never be separated. 

Patti Smith was still relatively close to her scheduled time, but there was no way I was getting close. Or let's say I wasn't going to try. The puddle was too great a distance.

There was “Power to the People” hanging joyously in the air. All I had to do was stand in solidarity. Patti, being Patti, simply said, “We hope people will do the RIGHT thing.” There are people who can say a sentence like that and make it sound like a bumper sticker. Patti Smith makes it sound like an instruction from the future. She was high energy and took to the stage like white lightning, hot as ever. By the time she launched into “Peacable Kingdom,” I had to split and head west to Shatner. I pumped my fist in the air and carried on. (Postscript: Patti rallied the crowd, closing her set with Gloria & My Generation. Bravo Patti! Thank you) 

The 95-year-old Shatner has gone to a new frontier: death metal. His band, The F*ckers, took the stage just before the fire dancers and the shock rock captains GWAR’s fantastic intro video. They ripped into Crazy Train. That's when you knew Captain Kirk was gonna Rocket Man his way through the set. His spoken-word style blended with the raging band comprised of Britt Lightning, Marcus Nand, and Fred Aching. Shatner always has a top-notch crew on board, and this was no different, combining years of metal on hand to get the job done right. 

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I won't go down without a fight because Dylan Thomas had it right.”

He was smiling, we were all smiling, it was everything I had hoped it would be. William Shatner was somewhere out there in the wet Chicago universe, preparing to captain whatever the fuck this thing had become. The Enterprise had encountered a mud planet. There was no turning back. The man can do it all, from Shatner Claus- his Christmas album- to Where Will the Animals Sleep? An album geared towards kids, William Shatner will always boldly go…

Then the huge crowd for Alanis. Huge crowd. They were all Head Over Feet and yes, she did do Ironic, thankfully, because we all began the day thinking, “It’s like rain on your Riot day...” 

You live, you learn. You scream, you learn. You lose. You learn

The jumbotron caught faces at exactly the right moment: happy and miserable, sometimes simultaneously. She launched into “You Oughta Know,” and man, has that song grown on me through the years. It’s incredible how living a little more life gives you the juice to really feel a song. An old song can be new again if you look at it right. 

As we turned to find higher ground - because apparently holding onto the bar was cockblocking the bartender - Alanis sang “Uninvited.” It hit me like the Grinch whose heart grew three sizes that day. I looked out over the muddy field and lovingly watched lovers of all kinds holding onto each other.

Then Thank You. Muah! Chef’s Kiss, Alanis. It’s been a long time coming, and she is amazing. 

Suddenly the whole thing became an emotional soundtrack for an overwhelming day of disgust and devotion. I wasn't mad at all. Punk Rowk is kindness. Punk Rowk is DIY. Punk Rowk is foraging, frugality, and forgiveness. 

I saw people carrying strollers because there was no way they were going to roll through the mud. Children on their adults' shoulders. Everybody wet. Everybody muddy. Everybody laughing. There is a childlike wonder to playing in mud that corporate events spend an enormous amount of money trying to imitate in the vein of “team bonding.” The earth had simply provided the service. As we walked back to the Reggie’s bus, we ran into an old friend. Rather than sneer or scoff, there was genuine concern because that was just the type of day everybody had. 

And this is where the festival begins to reveal what it actually is. No, there weren’t 20-minute improvisational jams. But there was Tool, doing a daytime set, raw with emotion, opening with a 10-minute song. I’m not seeing such clear boundaries anymore. If the music of the Grateful Dead is going to carry on for 300 years, it might start to look and feel a little different. Less tie-dye, more black. Ope! Didn’t Jerry actually wear nothing but black T-shirts? I think yes. 

From the holler to the hood, it is easy to see that most of us could never financially hope to hop on a plane and see Dead & Company in Las Vegas at the Sphere. I’m not going to Burning Man. I can’t pick up and galavant off to follow Billy Strings even if his ticket prices remain reasonable. Parking costs and gas prices will not allow it. 

That is not a moral failure.

It is simply math.

A festival like Riot Fest is another kind of gathering. It is closer. There is plenty of ride-sharing going on. (Thanks, Reggies!) Dirtier. More democratic in the oldest sense of the word. The community looks out for each other, but mostly in immediate, practical ways. Don't fall! Grab my arm. Watch your step. Here, take my hand. You need a ride?

That's the economy of the mud. It’s less brand name and more handmade moments. If you think you're too good for the mud, we don't want you here anyway.

Riot Fest is the pungent onion for which Chicago was named. It's sparky. It's shitty. It's exactly the way we like it. Every year, Riot Fest keeps the land and the people at its center. And now we have developed an affinity for John Stamos that other cities could never possibly understand. The Replacements came out of a 22-year hiatus to reunite - at Riot Fest. The Wu-Tang Clan performed 36 Chambers in its entirety. Riotland has its own historical museum because there is so much lore that only continues to build. When the world is in chaos, Riot Fest serves as creation and wonder. 2026 is another page in that history book. 

This year, Captain Kirk stepped in to steer the ship. The Enterprise. Blue collar. Manual labor. Hired hands who stick around until the work is done. We love a map and a schedule. We love to share amended set times. We love to bitch about the amended set times.

Somewhere around the Rise Stage, I began wondering whether a whangdoodle might emerge from the mud, some undefined fanciful creature, a thing nobody had planned for. You know, something ancient and stupid and magnificent crawling up out of the saturated earth to ask what the hell we thought we were doing.

A deep suction cup around your heel. The mineral-metallic smell of saturated soil. That moment when your shoe goes down, and the ankle and the calf… and now you are screaming Artax! It's a psychological trap. If you think sad thoughts, you will succumb to the Swamps of Sadness. Remind yourself of the luck dragon and soon enough, you’ll be flying above the bullies.

“Fight against the sadness Artax!”

We slurped, squished, and splashed from stage to stage, trying to locate clay or something resembling reliable ground. Toilet-plunger sounds followed us through the puddles. People attempted to ski when it became evident there would be no dependable surface to step on. It was footprints, sacrificed shoes. We left our soles in Douglass Park and shimmyied our souls with a good clean rinse from the skies. There were giggles of nervous energy. There were assholes. There were kind souls, soaked socks, dark sprays of swamp.

Everybody got real cool about it real fast. There wasn't much other choice. You can't manufacture manners when you're knee-deep in mud. You can only practice them.

One woman called Margie a bitch. Fuck you too, eh? This sludge was for everyone. That is the thing about mud. It is profoundly egalitarian. Mud does not care about your VIP pass. Mud does not care about your outfit. Mud does not care how important you think you are. Mud will take you down, bitch. 

And then somebody reaches out a hand.

That was the culture of Riot Fest. Kinship. Not branding. Not manufactured community. Not an activation, a living, breathing, thriving thing. I met a woman named Amanda. Amanda was from Canada. She stopped me and asked if I would take a picture of her with her friend Johnny. After Johnny walked away, she told me the long and winding story of their friendship. She had flown in from Canada to be here. Then she gave me maple syrup hard candy.

Because apparently this is what happens at Riot Fest.

You arrive from Canada and hand candy to strangers.

Another Amanda I chatted with was collecting earthworms in a Ziploc bag. Later, there was an online post about it, and people gathered in the comments to express their sympathies for the little crawlers. People wished they had thought to do the same. People wished they had brought the worms home for their compost piles. That is welcoming the weird.

That is generational continuity. That is investing in sequoia seeds. It is profoundly uncool. It is also one of the most beautiful things humans do. Somebody sees something small and vulnerable. Somebody stops. Somebody helps. Somebody else says, “I would have done that too!”

Somebody somewhere knows something. We'll figure it out together. That is culture. Not a brand. Not a logo. Not a VIP credential. A handful of wet people standing around a plastic bag full of earthworms, trying to keep something alive.

Punk Rock Saves Lives was on site, hoping to reach a fundraising goal, and if they do- which they did- they will mud wrestle. The farm field as community, wearing pink shorts and shirtless in the mud. That is mutual aid. What a win-win!

This is Chicago. That pungent aroma. That overwhelming perfume of funk. It's greeting your loved ones with the middle finger. It's sarcasm. Corn dogs. Crappy coffee. Don't bother asking for cream. It's punk and pretty. It's a whole lot of fuck you in your cup.

And then we tip well. We shed a little tear. We went home exhausted. Then we talk about how perfect it was. We told the story before we've even finished living it. Because you can't buy a vibe. You can buy the ticket. The rest you have to earn. We earned it in that mud. We earned it by getting our shoes swallowed by Chicago. We earned it by noticing.

That was the art of Riot Fest 2026. The habit of noticing. The art of staying. The art of getting filthy enough that nobody can pretend they are separate from the earth. The destiny of Grateful Dead music is going to look different as we continue to hurl through space and time. The old counterculture has become something else entirely now.

The beacon changes, but it’s still the same as it ever was. Freaking out the establishment! The ship changes. The captain changes. But somebody is still steering toward the strange. This year, Captain Kirk took the helm. The rain came down, and the mud rose up, yet somewhere underneath it all, the music kept playing. 

The whangdoodle never did emerge, not exactly. Maybe it didn't have to. Maybe the whangdoodle was the whole fucking thing. The wet socks. The worms. The maple candy. The middle fingers, the children, the punks, the old hippies. I saw plenty of Grateful Dead T-shirts. So you seek, so shall you find!

Riot Fest, 2026, Chicago, Illinois. A temporary civilization built on saturated soil. We entered with a map. We left with mud. And for one wet, filthy Sunday, that was plenty enough to keep us boldly going where noone has gone before. Live Long and Prosper Riot Fest!!