Friday night's show was frontrunner for the Chicagoiest night of the entire festival. The lineup consisted entirely of quixotic hometown favorites, save only for West Coasters Wax. Riot Fest '09 marked their first show in almost a decade-and-a-half, and they appeared no worse for the wear. Their brand of snappy pop struck a chord with the audience, assisted in no small part by lead singer Joe Sib, who swept across the stage with the mic stand clenched firmly in hand, the Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire.
They wrapped up with early ‘90s quasi-hit “California,” leaving the still somewhat sparse audience feeling good about the night yet to come.
Chicago's No Empathy was one of the overtly nostalgic reunions of this year's festival, “reunion” being a questionable term considering singer Marc Ruvolo is the only original member left in the band. They played some of their ‘80s hardcore favorites, but the overall atmosphere was that of a guy knocking out some tunes with his buddies for old times' sake. For their last song, Mike O'Connell, owner of Chicago bar/live music venue Liar's Club and front-man for Rights Of The Accused, joined them for a punked-out rendition of AC/DC's “TNT.”
Chances are if you live outside of the greater Chicago-land area and you've heard of Rights of the Accused, it's because the band launched the careers of both Jay Yuenger (later of White Zombie) and Brian St. Claire (later of Triple Fast Action and Local H), neither of whom performed Friday night. In spite of having possibly the most quintessentially ‘80s hardcore name, the group's other major influence was most fully on display: their love of Kiss and all things ‘70s glam metal. O'Connell paraded around the stage dressed in a silver cowboy suit while the band ground out tunes that were equal parts punk rock and cock rock. Throughout the night he peppered his set with bombastic announcements: “This is our first hit single, off our first hit record,” and “Here's the song YOU made number one!” It was loud, it was over the top, and it was unbelievably fun.
By the time Naked Raygun took the stage, I felt like Jeff Pezatti and I were old friends. His performance was more animated than Wednesday night's, spurred, no doubt, by the larger and more enthusiastic audience, but other than leaning out into the crowd a few times, he and the rest of the band were still fairly static. Raygun ripped through song after song — melodic classics like “And to the Gods” and the menacing, Big Black-influenced “Peacemaker” — with the fans providing a backing chorus of whoa-oh-ohs. Looking down from the balcony, I could see the crowd surging left and right, lifting kids up and passing them from hand to hand. “That's what it used to be like,” the woman next to me shouted, and another man confided, “Twenty years ago, I would have been down there.”
There was an undeniable glow of nostalgia from some of the older concert-goers, but more than that, I think was the pleasure of knowing something that meant so much to them growing up was still relevant to audiences today. Many, like my seat-mate Kristen, were eager to talk to younger people in the crowd and share stories from Chicago's burgeoning punk scene, stories of being hassled by the cops for being the only kid in town with a Mohawk. I went home feeling the way a traveler does when he makes a pilgrimage back to the land of his ancestors, like I had visited someplace deep at my center, a place that I had never been but nevertheless felt a lot like home.
