calpurnia riot fest
[Photo by: Ryan Bakerink]

See these Riot Fest performers in a different light

Riot Fest returned for its fourteenth year this past weekend. Taking over Douglas Park in Chicago, the fest featured everyone from Beck to GWAR.

You may have seen them perform onstage (whether in person or vicariously through social media posts), but we want to show you them in a different light. Check out photos of the Dangerous Summer, Taking Back Sunday, Alkaline Trio, the Wonder Years, Underoath and more.

Read more: Here’s everything you missed at Riot Fest 2018

[Photos by: Ryan Bakerink]

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Read more: Riot Fest Oral History: The unlikely story of punk rock’s most beloved festival

Over the past decade, Riot Fest has become one of the most beloved festivals in the world. They have reunited some of punk’s most iconic bands, and, in many ways, set the bar for how genuinely great a music festival can be. But when founder Mike Petryshyn started out in 2005, literally none of this was part of the plan. By his own admission, he was a music industry outsider who had zero experience and even less right to put on a festival in his new hometown of Chicago.

But over the next 12 years, Petryshyn and partners Sean McKeough and Corrie Christopher Martin expanded the festival throughout North America and changed the face of music history. They also suffered some incredible highs and devastating lows (such as the unexpected death of McKeough in 2016). AP presented a three-part special on the fest, told by its inner circle as well as the bands it will forever be associated with. Their story, in their own words, can be viewed here.