Bikini Kill performs at Riot Fest in Chicago on Sept. 15, 2019
Sunday (Sept. 15) at Riot Fest was pure musical bliss. The third and final day of the fest, which faced an ongoing threat of rain, ultimately beat the weather, going out in style with a musical bang. Highlights from Day 3 came in the form of an impassioned set from Patti Smith and Her Band, a double dose of punk from Against Me!, a musical maritime voyage from Ween and a riot grrrl revival from Bikini Kill.
It had been over 20 years since Bikini Kill performed in Chicago but last night at Riot Fest saw the feminist punks come out swinging. Frontwoman Kathleen Hanna brought a chaotic, no-holds-barred energy to the Riot Stage for the group’s festival-closing set, talking gender and politics, among other topics, between tracks.
Backed by original members Kathi Wilcox on bass and Tobi Vail on drums, and joined by the band’s newest member Erica Dawn Lyle on guitar, Hanna and co. tore through tracks like “Reject All American” and the punchy “Double Dare Ya,” prior to closing out with fan fav “Rebel Girl.”
Patti Smith performs at Riot Fest in Chicago on Sept. 15, 2019
Prior to Bikini Kill’s set, Patti Smith returned to the city of her birth with Her Band for a compact hour-long set, bringing eloquent beauty and poetic passion to Chicago’s Douglas Park. The eleven song set — a mix of both originals and covers — was well-constructed, and the band, made up of Lenny Kaye and her son Jackson Smith on guitars, Tony Shanahan on bass and keys, and Jay Dee Daughtery on drums, was tight and on point.
The group’s upbeat set-opener “People Have the Power,” from Smith’s ’88 album Dream of Life, had fans instantly charged up and clapping along, while a later take of “Pissing in a River” shifted things to a darker more menacing tone.
Smith and Her Band pleased fans’ ears with a pair of crowd-pleasers including a chill-inducing “Dancing Barefoot” and a powerful rendition of “Because the Night,” which the Godmother of Punk dedicated to her late husband Fred “Sonic” Smith.
Patti Smith performs at Riot Fest in Chicago on Sept. 15, 2019
Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed and The Rolling Stones were all represented during the short set, but it was a pair of moving covers — Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning” and Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” — that truly showed off the punk poet’s interpretive strength and range.
After a minor vocal hiccup, the frontwoman closed things out with a frenzied rendition of “Gloria” from her beloved debut album Horses.
“Chicago is where I took my first breath as a human being,” said Smith, toward the end of her performance. “Always happy to be back.”
Against Me! performs at Riot Fest in Chicago on Sept. 15, 2019
Earlier on the Riot Stage, Gainesville, Florida’s Against Me! brought a one-two punch of punk, performing both Reinventing Axl Rose and Transgender Dysphoria Blues front-to-back. The high-energy punk rock block had fans singing along at the opening notes of RAR’s “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong” all the way through to the end of TDB’s “Black Me Out.”
Frontwoman Laura Jane Grace, who deemed Riot Fest her favorite music festival, led a crowd-wide sing-along on “Baby, I’m an Anarchist!” prior to stripping things down for an intimate set one closer of “8 Full Hours of Sleep.” Later, TDB’s title track inspired a steady stream of crowd-surfers, while fan fav “True Trans Soul Rebel” saw listeners belting out the anthem’s lyrics, arm in arm.
Fans weren’t the only ones blown away at the prospect of hearing these two albums in succession as Grace too seemed to appreciate the unlikely arrangement. “This is a once in a lifetime thing,” said the singer. “Playing these two records together.”
Less Than Jake performs at Riot Fest in Chicago on Sept. 15, 2019
Across Douglas Park, fellow Gainesville natives Less Than Jake performed a pop punk set on the Rise Stage. The group was extra-chatty during their forty five-minute set, razzing their sound guy, their fans and one another between tracks including Losing Streak’s “Automatic” and “Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts,” and Hello Rockview’s “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads.” The group shouted out Chicago’s Metro, recalling their first show at the venue back in 1995 and the shock they felt having had 500 fans waiting there to see them.
Later in the evening, Ween performed a marathon set in front of a massive crowd of radiant misfits over on the Radicals Stage. The two-hour stage-closing time slot — the longest of this year’s festival — saw founding members Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo (better known as Gene and Dean Ween, respectively) performing their revered album The Mollusk in full, sandwiched between a selection of songs from the group’s heterogeneous catalog of content.
Ween performs at Riot Fest in Chicago on Sept. 15, 2019
Backed by the collective musicality of bassist Dave Dreiwitz, keyboardist Glenn McClelland and drummer Claude Coleman Jr., the alt rockers took their nautical-themed LP to new heights, with live renditions of fan favorites including the album’s title track and “The Blarney Stone,” the latter to which the crowd collectively shouted out the chorus in true pirate-like fashion.
“Aye aye aye, sharpen your boot, and bludgeon your eye. Aye aye aye, the blarney stone brings a tear to me eye.”
Gene recreated his vocal magic on “I’ll Be Your Jonny on the Spot” with the help of a bullhorn, while Dean, later, accented “Mutilated Lips” with some subtle guitar noodling. The band showed its softer side on tracks like “It’s Gonna Be (Alright)” and “She Wanted to Leave,” while taking listeners on an aquatic trip with a spirited performance of “Ocean Man.”
Ween performs at Riot Fest in Chicago on Sept. 15, 2019
As if that wasn’t enough, the group accented their mega-set with a rockin’ version of “Gabrielle,” from their 2005 compilation album Shinola (Vol. 1), and an eerie take of “Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)” under stark red lighting, prior to serving up a jam-laced single track encore of Chocolate & Cheese gem “Roses Are Free.”
Other noteworthy moments from Day 3 at Riot Fest included sets from The Raconteurs, The B-52s, Save Ferris, Nick Lowe with Los Straitjackets and the Village People.
Check out our Day 1 coverage HERE and our Day 2 coverage HERE.
(Photos by Laurie Fanelli)
