Riot Fest Is Celebrating Their Lineup Release The Same Way They Always Do, By Absolutely Eviscerating People Who Complain On Twitter
One of the most thankless, painstaking jobs we have in today's hellscape masquerading as a society is social media manager. In the online world it is a mostly vanilla job where you are limited to what you can and can't say by corporate SOPs and HR department parameters. You can spot these people in the real world by the deadness behind their eyes and the bags underneath of them from long nights laying awake dreading opening up Twitter again.
The one place where absolutely none of those things are true is with the annual 3-day punk rock music fest in Chicago, Riot Fest. Every year they drop their lineup. Every year people bitch in the mentions. And every year they roast the shit out of the people complaining. You can set your watch to it and every Twitter veteran knows just how awesome it actually is.
And this year they started red hot before the bands were even announced.
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Saying "don't fucking buy them...no one fucking cares" about your tickets to a potential customer is objectively hilarious. It harkens back to the days of Dick's Last Resort and a world where we didn't think everyone needed to bow down and gargle our junk just because we are spending some of our hard earned dollars. A little shit talking can be fun. As Vindog would say, lighten the fuck up.
Sometimes I feel bad for the people who run the socials for sports teams. They get shit on constantly and just have to bite their tongues and bury the rage deep within themselves. Until one day it comes exploding out into the real world like a volcano and they end up on a viral video screamcrying at a Starbucks barista for spelling their name wrong. Hence the dead eyes I referenced earlier.
But like a coach with a veteran superstar on the roster, Riot Fest gives this social media person the green light to fire at will and roast the shit out of any challengers. They trust him or her to shoot right in the eye of the haters and trolls.
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This, my friends, is what Twitter was invented for. Forget breaking news or sports reporting, I want to see people entire lives torn apart in a 280 character assassination. I want for someone to fire off a shitty comment and when they check their phone an hour later they have gone viral because a rock festival turned their massive five head into a trending topic. I WANT ONLINE TEARS!
I'm not the biggest punk rock guy in the world. I'm more like a weekend dabbler who doesn't own a ball gag but can get down with some bdsm if the chick is bad enough. But even my novice rock brain knows this lineup fucking rules.
Foo Fighters, Death Cab For Cutie, Queens of the Stone Age, The Cure, The Mars Volta…that alone is a lineup that will have you stuck in the crowd experiencing a face melt so intense you'll be wondering if you wandered into a 1980's B Horror movie.
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George Clinton and P Funk is a great addition as I'm pretty sure 95% of the population loves them. If you don't love them I don't want to be anywhere near you and your shitty taste in music anyway. Flashlight and Give Up The Funk would be high on the list of options should we ever decide to change our nation's national anthem.
But what intrigues me the most is the absurdity of both Insane Clown Posse and Corey Feldmen performing. Back in my day I was a Jnco wearing juggalo of sorts so I am certifiably "down with the clown" as they say. But I did not realize that Corey Feldmen made music.
I pulled up the latest music video I could find and holy shit this has to be a joke right? It sounds way more like a terrible SNL skit than a real song someone thought people would listen to and not want to dig their ear drums out with a butter knife.
Once again I'm no punk music aficionado but I think I'm safe in saying the only thing punk about this song is the fact that Corey Feldmen's face looks like it is refusing to obey the laws of gravity. He's got a real Joan Rivers thing going on.
I also recognize Gaslight Anthem, Pennywise, and Hawthorne Heights to name a few others. I'm not going to pretend like I can tell you the overall quality of the lineup but the names at the top are pretty fucking awesome.
And if Riot Fest's Twitter presence is any indication this place goes super hard and has very few rules. Which does in fact, rule.