So... Alright - Riot Fest

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Geoff and Millie celebrate her twentieth birthday, at Riot Fest in Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Simons celebrates freedom of expression with a daily ritual of getting dressed. Fashion's power lies in its endless possibilities. Each garment is an invitation to get creative, be unique, and show the world exactly who you are as you are. Be true, be authentic, be unapologetically you. Express yourself at Simons. So a lot has happened in my life to talk about, at least a lot worth talking about since the last time I recorded an episode of So All right. I think too much for one episode. Right off the bat, let me just say, I've now taken two, three, I have now taken three waymos and I have thoughts.

But I feel like I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn't talk about the biggest thing that's happened to me recently, which is going to the Riot Fest, three-day music festival in Chicago, meeting Millie in Chicago and having a daddy-daughter weekend together where we spent about 30 hours standing in grass fields, in dusty grass fields, watching bands from. my childhood and her present play. And, man, what an experience it was. And I just, I had so, I had so many emotions throughout the weekend. I, from father related to my own mortality, to just the joy of rediscovering lost love to, it just, it was a wild and wonderful weekend. And I just wanted to, to share it with you guys. If you don't mind, we can talk about Waymo's and other stuff later. I got up Friday morning at 4 a.m. hopped on a flight to Chicago.

I landed at, you know, probably nine, and I went into the city. Italy stayed behind. She had to work, unfortunately. And then I met up with Millie, who was also in town for the weekend so that we could do this together. Her birthday is next week.

She turns... Actually... I'm saying it next week as if I'm in the in the time that I'm telling the story. Her birthday is today. I'm recording this on September 23rd. Wow, it's been a pretty intensely emotional weekend in a lot of ways. Good ways, good ways, all good ways. Today is September 23rd.

Today is the anniversary of the best moment of my life. Sorry, I was just going to talk about Riot Fest today, and it just struck me. It's funny, I don't know why I didn't consider, I've already talked to Millie today. I already wished her happy birthday. I already sent her, her presence, and we already shared a moment together this morning. And I didn't really consider talking about her birthday on this podcast. It's more wanted to talk about the weekend we shared. Anyway, today is the anniversary of the day my life truly began, the day that my mission in life

to grow and love and care for and protect and shepherd. My daughter began. Of course, it's not about me. I just said it's the anniversary of all these things for me. Today is Millie's birthday. Today is the 20th birthday of my amazing, wonderful, impressive. brilliant, creative, talented, artistic, complex, nuanced, insightful, so, so wise for her age, daughter, Millie. Today is Millie's birthday. Millie's 20th birthday. I'm just so proud of her. I'm so happy for her. She's in art school for photography on a partial scholarship to one of the best schools in the country. And she's fucking killing it. She's a sophomore. And I just had the best weekend of my life with her. It was so wonderful to get to spend time with her, the adult. It's just,

it's a really awesome for those of you, for those of you who have kids who haven't moved out and moved on yet, who haven't left the nest yet. It's, uh, I'm going through it right now, obviously. I'm in the early stages of it. I'm only on year two of it. It is, uh, it is a wild and fascinating and brilliant thing to behold. And it is so wonderful and heartwarming and, and heartbreaking, but just so, it's just so fulfilling to watch your child apply everything that they've learned in life about life and go out into the world and just take flight like pure flight it's it's pretty it's pretty awesome and uh i couldn't be more impressed with and proud of the woman that milly has become and continues to evolve into and um

love her so much. Anyway, to celebrate Millie's birthday, we went to Riot Fest in Chicago together. It's a big three-day music festival that features a lot of punk bands, metal bands, some hip-hop, you know, just whatever's like edgy at the time, whatever kind of matters. It's largely punk-focused, but it kind of covers the game in a little bit, you know? Millie really wanted to go she's really getting into music now that she's in college

and she's kind of out on her own and she's starting to go to shows and her musical tastes are really starting to flourish and so she's kind of ravenous I find she's constantly asking me for musical recommendations which I, for the first time of my life

it's blowing me away at something it's fucking awesome those are texts I love to get you know she'll send me like a rainbow song and be like can you send me four or five songs that sound like this and I'm like I know what I'm doing for the rest of

of my day. I can dive into Spotify and go, he-he-ha-ha-ha-ha. Now to pick the perfect four songs for Millie. So it seemed like a great opportunity to spend some time with her and to expose her to a lot of bands that she has interest in and for me to have a good little trip down memory lane. I've been to Riot Fest once before, maybe 10, 12 years ago. I've been trying to sit here and pinpoint exactly when it was, but I can't. It was a long time ago.

And obviously, I've been to one billion punk shows in my life. I had seen almost every band that was going to be performing at this riot fest before, with the exception of I've never seen screeching weasel before I had never seen stiff little fingers before and I had never seen some other bands before that I was blown away by it, but I wasn't there to see them.

I think those were the two that I was I think those were the two that I was excited to check off my list. Oh, I'd never seen the damned and the Buzzcocks perform and I wanted to see both of them pretty badly and I ended up not seeing either of them because I was watching something else that was too good. But also a lot of my favorite bands were there. Jawbreaker was there a band that I talked about from time to time on here that has really, was always a really important band to me growing up and never really faded from my conscious, but I stopped listening to for years when I kind of stopped being as into this kind of scene and into music in this way. And they kind of

have resurfaced in my life the past three or four years in a really odd way where all of their old music has taken on increased meaning. It's almost as if like they've become, the band I'm talking about, by the way, is Pegboy, Chicago punk rock band, Pegboy. They've become like kind of the focal point of my, of like the funneling of my memories of my youth. It all kind of like goes through like a peg boy filter for some reason. Either Pegboy or Jawbreaker. I don't know why. I always liked both of those bands, but I don't know that either of them were ever my favorite band at the time that I was into them. I just liked them a lot. And I went out of my way to see them live every opportunity that I had growing up. But it's weird to me that,

As I've kind of gotten older and nostalgic and definitely through this podcast, as I've looked backwards in my life, those two bands have had sort of an outsized importance where I felt like they didn't at the time, but they've just aged incredibly well. Or I feel like the music and I have aged together, you know? Like I, for instance, no effects. Fantastic band. I loved them. I've spent a lot of my life enjoying No Effects. I've talked about them. I did a little homage to them on this podcast when they, after they had their final show. Like them, appreciate them, have enjoyed going back and re-listening to some old No Effects songs. My favorite No Effects songs are still some of my favorite songs and I still listen to them. But for the most part, their catalog hasn't, hasn't aged with me. You know, I don't necessarily want to go back and listen to white trash two hebes and a bean in. its entirety or heavy petting zoo, you know, one or two songs to stand out, like the decline I will always want to listen to. But I guess when I listen to Jawbreaker and Pegboy music that was made by people in their 20s, four people in their 20s when I was in my 20s, listening to

it in my 50s, it still makes sense or it makes a different kind of sense. It's matured, maybe in the way that wine matures with age. Some things do, many things do not. But for some reason, at least with me, Pegboy and Jawbreaker have both just grown more important to me over time. And I feel a lot of nostalgia. I feel most of my nostalgia is kind of a wash in their music in some way, which is interesting. Because they're, you know, I saw Bad Religion at Riot Fest. Bad Religion was my favorite band from the age of 15 until the age of 35, probably. I listened to two bad religion almost every day of my life. My second tattoo, my first tattoo was a black flag tattoo.

Obviously, I'm an idiot. My second tattoo was a bad religion tattoo, still is a bad religion tattoo, the suffer boy on my leg. I've had it since I was 18 years old. That's how important bad religion was to me at 18, and they continued to be that important to me well into my 30s. I couldn't tell you, at some point Millie asked me which of the bands at Riot Fest I'd seen the most, and I was like, ah, fuck, that's an interesting question.

and I thought, oh, it has to be bad religion. I couldn't figure it out. I've seen them somewhere between eight and 14 times. It all just kind of bleeds together. And at some point, your memories just become one big, knotted ball of yarn, honestly. That would take a calendar and a diary and a bunch of old photos to unravel. And it just wouldn't be worth it, you know. So I think it's weird that, like, they were there and I was excited to see them, you know, happy to see them.

They were such a big part of my life for such a long part of my life. and how could hell be any worse? The album, their first album is still, it gives me chills to think about it. But at some point, like, it didn't age with me, you know? Like, my appreciation of it is as strong as ever, but I don't dust off and listen to against the grain very often. Some songs I do.

I like Anastasia, and they played that, by the way, and that was awesome to see live. But it doesn't, for whatever reason, it doesn't resonate with me in the same way that Job Break and more than anything, Pegboy seemed to at this point in my life. So I was really excited to see those bands. There were a lot of bands to see. There were some bands that I am excited about that I don't know very well, that I wanted to see live idols and Lambrini girls and Rico Nasty being chiefly among those three

and saw all three and have a lot of opinions about those who we'll get to. But anyway, I hit the ground running on that Friday. Sorry, I got off on a tangent. I got overwhelmed with emotion thinking about Millie for a bit. I don't know how this edits up right now because I, you know, I obviously will be editing it tomorrow. Editing is in the future. But I had a breakdown there for, it's not going to be in the episode. But I got hit in the fucking face with emotion over Millie's birthday.

And I had a little breakdown in the middle there where I tried and restarted. And I'm going to chop it up and try to turn it into something salient or just re-record the whole thing. But I doubt I'll do that. I'm sure I can make it work, but man, I, uh, this going on to say, I don't know how long I've been doing this for, or how long we're into the episode we are at this point, because it's going to require some heavy editing to cover all my sobs and nonsense. But anyway, I hit the ground running. Up at 4 a.m. on Friday, hit the event around, I don't know, one or two p.m. met up with Millie, and we just started seeing bands. And right off the bat,

let me say this. I saw a lot of bad music. Bands that I'd never heard of, or bands that I'd never heard of, or bands that I'd never heard, but I'd heard of, that I was interested to see that I thought were pretty terrible. I saw a lot of bands that I know well that I thought turned in some pretty mediocre performances. I saw some bands that I love that are a big deal to me that I was really disappointed in. I don't want to focus on that.

I had such a good, positive time. I'm just going to talk about the bands and the musicians that were absolute standouts to me. You know, out the gate just blew me away. The first one out the gate that I saw that blew me away was Rico Nasty. I was interested to see RICO Nasty because Millie was interested to see RICO nasty. Millie likes her a lot and is into her and was like, Dad, you're going to love her. She's so cool.

She's got so much energy. It's going to be really neat. And she was not wrong. She does like this awesome blend of hip hop with live rock and roll guitar and kind of like punky yelling and screaming. And she was all over the place and she was an insane amount of energy. and she was sarcastic, and I am now absolutely a RICO nasty fan. I'm sure I'm not the prime RICO nasty demographic, but I don't care. I absolutely was blown away and became a fan in the moment on the day.

And if you ever have a chance to see her perform, I highly recommend you do. Another standout band that we saw on Friday, I'm trying not to make this sound like I'm reading the phone book. You know what I mean? I don't want to do that. I don't want to just go down the list and be like, just list band and say good or bad. I'll try to put more into it. but we saw a band from California that I like. I know very little of called Touche Amore,

kind of a modern hardcore band. And I thought they were a really good live. If you like hardcore, if you're into a current... I mean, they've been around for probably a decade. But anyway, they were really good. One of the bands that I was really excited to see that I've seen a bunch in my life, but that's part of why I was excited to see them,

is Agnostic Front. If you're not familiar with them, they are like one of the OG tough guy New York hardcore bands. they have an album called Victim and Pain that is an absolute classic, like a seminal must-have if you're into hardcore, especially if you want to understand the history of hardcore. Victim in Pain is one of probably the 10 most influential hardcore albums of all time. It's a fucking awesome album, and they played it in its entirety, and it was so cool to see Roger and Vinnie, again, I've seen them play a bunch in my life.

They still look like they could easily beat the shit out of anybody at the festival without breaking a sweat, and I believe they probably could. Those guys, they absolutely live what they sing and the way they sing, and they have the entire time. I've been a fan of them. The only problem with the show, they sounded great, by the musically, they sounded great. The only problem with the show is that the vocal

mix was way low, and so it was hard to hear vocals for pretty much the entire set, which was kind of a bummer, but they were playing the album, Victim and Pain in its entirety, so everybody knew every word. So the entire crowd was singing along the entire time anyway, so it filled in, and it didn't ruin the show.

still really good show. I just wish the vocal mix would have been higher. That particular stage had vocal issues the entire weekend. I thought it was a bummer. Millie and I basically had a long conversation all weekend about old shows that I'd been to and bands and stories and she had a million questions. And it was a lot of fun. But when we were watching Agnostic Front, she was asking me about violent shows that I'd been to in the past. And I was explaining to her that Agnostic Front's, probably two or three Agnostic Front shows are among the like five or six most violent shows I've ever been to, including this one at the back room I went to in the late 90s, I guess. This is an East Riverside in Austin. The club is no longer there. It's now emo's. Emos has

moved into it. The whole thing is weird. I'm not into it. But when it was the back room, Agnostic Front played there one time. And a dude threw an entire glass pitcher full of beer into the pit and it exploded and cut a bunch of people up and then people just started throwing fists everywhere and it was just like a big bloody sweaty beer-soaked mess and it got out of control pretty quickly uh anyway i was telling milly that story and a few others and it was a much damer said at riot fest but it was cool to see them play again not a band i thought i would probably why is i'm not looking for that kind of show at 50 you know know, so Riot Fest seems like a safe place to see them. Although I don't know that they're having

that kind of show in 2025, honestly. I saw very little of Weird Al Yankovic. The crowd around Weird Al was insane. There were a few times at Riot Fest. Now, admittedly, I left before Blinklandy 2 played, I left before Weezer played, and I left as Green Day was playing. So I missed like the three quote unquote biggest bands there, but at least current bands there. But the crowd for Weird Al Yankovic, idols, Jack White, and the Beach Boys, was just as big, if not bigger, than those others that rivaled those. The Weird A Yankevick crowd was so fucking insanely big. I couldn't hang or get anywhere near him. So I watched like three songs. It was really cool. He seems as good as ever. I recommend to everybody see Reda Yankevick if you ever to get the opportunity.

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legends, stiff little fingers from Belfast, they their first album Inflammable Material I've been listening to since I was about 14. It is still one of my favorite albums of all time. Their first three albums are really untouchable. They're like, imagine an Irish

version of the Clash is essentially what they were. They were all such big fans of the Clash. They kind of wanted to be a Clash-esque band. And they became their own thing that I think is just as very different from the clash. Similar roots, you can feel a lot of similarities and the music at the time was very similar and they were playing similar kinds of music, but approached from very different angles. And what stiff little fingers did well, they did so well. They have this

bluesy, buzzy, gravelly, growly, poppy, catchy sound that is instantly infectious. The lead singer is a guy named Jake Burns and he has got to be 65 or older, you know, he's maybe 70. They started in 1977. This band has been around since the fucking beginning. And he sounded perfect. He sounded like he was 25 years old up on that stage. I was unbelievably impressed with how good, how tight, how perfect they sounded for as, I mean, that is, it was the epitome of a, bunch of guys that have been doing this for longer than they haven't, and they have it fucking down, and they haven't lost a step. And when they played alternative Ulster, I shit you not, I burst into tears. Caught me completely off guard, but I lost it. I absolutely lost it.

And I burst into tears. And then I cried for the next two songs. It was such a treasured moment to get to see them and to get to see them with Millie and to have her be so impressed by bunch of dudes who, you know, I'm old. I'm Millie's dad. She looks at me and she's old, right? These guys, I'm young to these guys. These guys are in their 60s and 70s. These guys are as old as her grandfather would be if he was still alive. God rest his soul. And for her to be impressed with these guys and think that they were just as good and energetic and fucking punchy and edgy as all the people her age, I was just so gratifying. And it was so cool to watch her enjoy them in much the same way that I do. And everybody there did because

they were that fucking good. By the way, wasn't going to talk about this. but I will mention it, Gwar played, which if you've been alive and you've gone to any music festival in the last 30 years, you've seen Gwar play, it's impossible. I think they have some sort of a deal with the devil where they get a midday slot on every festival on earth, 365 days a year. They must just go from festival to festival every weekend. I bet there's 52 festivals, and I bet they play 50 a year. Anyway, they were exactly what you would expect. They were they were guari you know i think all the original members are dead now and it's they're essentially i was trying to explain it to to milly because the concept was blowing her away and she saw the costumes

and then you know they had the big president trump shooting blood out of his chest and the crowd was getting soaked in fake blood and they've got their little comedy skits which are never funny but god bless them for doing it you know and for sticking with it but i was trying to explain it to Millie, the lineage, and how all the original members, I think, are dead or no longer in the band, and it just continues. And I essentially, I was like, it's kind of, it's essentially the Blue Man group. It's like the heavy metal performative Blue Man group. It just gets passed down from generation of performer to generation of performer. I suspect that when Millie is 50 and taking her 20-year-old kid to Riot Fest, 40 or whatever it is, Gwar will be performing. Before I go too much

further, I think I should say at this point, over the three days I spent in a field at Douglas Park in Chicago, I met countless dozens upon dozens of you. Regulation listeners, well, sorry, not anymore you're not. Comment levers, Achievement 100 fans, Let's Play fans, rooster teeth fans, red versus blue fans. Thank you to everybody who said hi to me, who shook my hand who took a photo with me, who made fun of me for eating pizza and not a hamburger or a hot dog. I genuinely enjoyed meeting all of you. And Millie thought I was the most famous person on earth for a weekend. And that was cool as a dad to get to be like, hey, see, I still got it. I think got a little bit of juice, you know? So that was neat. And, but it was also just

lovely to meet so many of you. And to see, I saw, and to see multiple regulation shirts out in the Wild was very, very cool. Really do appreciate it. And never, never be a stranger if you see me in public. Please stop and say hi. I will always be nice and stop and give you a moment. I will never be Charles Barkley. I promise you that. I fear that we're veering into laundry list or reading the phone book-esque territory here with me just going down the row of bands that I saw. But let me just highlight the fact that I saw the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys played Riot Fest. It may seem weird. There has been this like 12 year

courtship between Riot Fest and John Stamos and I don't know why it had something to do with the butter sculpture of John Stamos and I could look it up and I could inform you on this but I genuinely it's too hokey for me to care enough to look up. But for some reason

Riot Fest had been trying to get John Stamos to appear for like over a decade and he gave them this silly list of demands. He wanted a nude picture of B. Arthur. He wanted a life-size pillow of himself. He wanted a, I think, a guitar case full of hummus. He wanted the head of Riot Fest to get his face tattooed on his body, and he wanted to play with the Beach Boys. Well, I guess they finally met it. And so all of those things happened. So John Stamos and the Beach

Boys performed a full Beach Boys set at Riot Fest on Saturday. And it was at moments. I mean, a lot of it was like, you know, round, round, round. get around, I get around, and surf in USA, and I wish they all could be California girls. A lot of it was that. But some of it was God Only Knows, you know, some of it was good vibrations, and there were moments where it was almost a religious experience. When God Only Knows played, I shit you not. I was, I got choked up. I was like immediately, when I heard them start to play it, I got a little choked up, because it is such a beautiful song. And multiple people around me, it would be hyperbole to say that everyone around me,

but multiple people around me in every direction burst out into tears. Like, there was like a collective exhale of people just started crying. It was so intense and beautiful in the moment, and it was such an awesome experience to see the Beach Boys. And it immediately reminded me of something, and it framed something in a way that I hadn't thought about it yet. And that was that the Beach Boys are the first or the second band I ever saw live in my life. The same year, the same summer, I saw Hall & Oates play live for my birthday.

And I saw The Beach Boys, I was like the Beach Boys, the platters, the spinners, and someone else did like a day, festival somewhere in Florida, Jacksonville or St. Augustine or something. And my mom took my friend and I, I wasn't really going to see any of the bands. I was going to be a little dickhead with my friend and run around and drink free. I remember they were giving out free samples of orange crush and we ripped off so much free. I must have drank like 30 fucking gallons of orange crush that day. It was, I just remember being sticky and orange by the end of the day. But regardless, at some point during that day, I saw the Beach Boys play. And that was either the first concert I ever saw my life or the second. It was either, I'll never be able to, once again, I don't have a, I'll need a calendar

and a better memory than mine to sit down and figure out if I saw, or just like too much Google to figure out if I probably saw Holo Notes or Beach Boys first. It doesn't really matter. It was within two months of each other, probably. Crazy to think that the next time I saw the Beach Boys play. I was 11, by the way, when I saw them that year. So that was a 39-year gap between seeing that band play. I wish I remembered anything about the first show other than the Orange Crush and some of the shenanigans

and hijinks my friend and I got up to running around being little dickheads. I do remember enjoying the music and thinking it was cool and I was into the Beach Boys at that time in my life. It was the four seasons. Yeah, they were playing too, I think.

Is that who it was? Yeah, I think it was. I think they were the fourth band that played. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that that was a pretty wild 39-year gap between performances for me, and I doubt I'll beat that in my life. I don't think

Holo Notes is ever going to play together again, unfortunately. I guess I technically could beat it if I saw Holo Notes at some point in the future from here on out, but I don't think that that's in the cards ever, unfortunately. So I think the record will probably stand at 39 years with the Beach Boys. Although, Darrell, you're brilliant and I love you, but get over your shit and play with John. You guys together made something magical and people deserve to see your brilliance again. But I don't think that'll happen. So I'm going to hold on to my 39 year Beach Boys record. I'm not the world's biggest white stripes or Jack White fan. And that's not to say that like I dislike them at all. I've liked almost everything I've ever heard from them. And all the radio hits and the

popular songs I also like and I know and I can sing along too. I've just never like owned an album or like, I've never had a, done a deep dive into their music or his music, really, or any of his band's music. But I appreciate it when I hear him and I love the whole Detroit connection. And I tell you that the guy's a fucking hero in the city of Detroit and does a lot for the city of Detroit. So I definitely appreciate him on that level. But he played a solo show later that night. It was the last thing we saw before we left. And it was fucking awesome.

It was, I'm really glad I checked it out. Huge crowd. We were lucky enough to be pretty close to see it. got a good view of the set. And that dude has a tremendous amount of energy. He looks the same age up there on stage today as he did 20 years ago when I was first exposed to them. I was really impressed. If Jack White is your thing, you should definitely see him if you get a chance because he puts on a hell of a show. He then came, well, I'll tell you about his, something I saw him do on Sunday that was even more impressive. But so really Sunday for me was the big day. I got there

early because Pegboy played at like noon, I want to say. They were pretty early in the day. And this was something that was such a big deal to me because, like I said, this band has had this increased, inflated, outsized importance in my nostalgic view this last few years. Like, they've just become, I've learned to appreciate them so much over the last few years, so much more even than I did at the time when I was. young and they were young. So I was, honestly, the two reasons I was there were Millie and Pegboy. It was a really great deal to see stiff little fingers and I was really excited to see Dropkick Murphy so I didn't end up seeing and Bouncing Souls and Alkaline Trio and the Buzzcox who I didn't

see and the Damned who I didn't see and a million other bands and performances. There were Beach Boys I was really jazz to see. Bad Religion, of course, you know, Zero boys I was excited to see. There were a bunch of bands I was excited to see. But then all of the, of them together wouldn't have moved the needle for me if it weren't from Millie and Pegboy. And so, oh, Jawbreaker was close. But I've seen them fairly recently. So I just, I couldn't miss it. I knew I had to go to see Pegboy one more time. And let me tell you, I won't say it was the best performance of the day, because later on on Sunday, I saw a band that gave a performance that I've, will stick with me until I die, I think, honestly. Probably top three or four

performance of I've ever seen in my life. I'd have to sit down and really put some work into thinking who I've seen that was better than what I saw on Sunday from this band. But Pegboy gave a legendary performance. They gave the most personal performance I've ever seen in my life. I've never felt more connected in a moment to a band and to a music and to a sound and to a crowd. Like there are no, this was maybe the best part for me. There are no casual Pegboy fans in 2025. If you are a fan of Pegboy, if you're getting up and getting to the festival early to see Pegboy on the last day of the festival, you care as much about Pegboy as I do. You want to see Pegboy as badly as I do. And everybody in that crowd was there in the exact same capacity as I was. And it felt so

heartwarming. And it felt, it was a feeling that radiated throughout the weekend that I can talk about at some point, which was just the feeling of kinship and warmth and family. But I never felt it stronger than I did in the moment I was standing in the crowd very close to the front watching Pegboy play. And Larry DeMore is 61 years old. And I think he said like eight months ago, he had heart surgery. And he looked so fucking good for a 61 year old to mean. He's got gray hair and he's definitely 61. But he still had so much energy. They still just absolutely exploded onto the stage and he got down into the crowd by the second or third song and then he kept coming back down and he was crowd surfing and he was yelling into the crowd and he was

singing with the people and he was giving a performance and it was like I was 19 years old again I cried through most of the show it was intense they played every song I love with the exception of like three but they played like everything they played I loved they didn't play a single song I wasn't in love with that I didn't sing wholeheartedly and full-throatedly along with through my fucking tears because it was like, it was like spiritual almost to be in that moment with those other people and to watch them. And I took a bunch of videos that I would love. I don't know how to share it with you guys. I don't know if it's appropriate to put them on Instagram or whatever, but I took so many moments in videos of them performing and I've

just been watching them over and over again on my phone all weekend and on the flight home yesterday. I just watched Pegboy videos over and over again. I was so blown away and Millie didn't make it up and out early enough to see Pegboy on Sunday. And so I met up with her later, but I was showing her the videos later that night. And the crazy thing was, I was like, I just want you to see what these guys looked like when they were younger. And so I found a video on TikTok of strong reaction. And then I found the video I took of them playing strong reaction. And we played them back to back. And it is the fucking craziest thing to see, 35. years of distance between Larry D'more running around on stage and singing a song and then doing it

at 61. I said the video I found was from 1991. And then here the other one I took is from, you know, Sunday. And it's the same people. He's got the same mannerisms. He's got the same like he moves around like a toddler almost, like a beefy toddler. And he's got it. It's like the same energy and the same vibe. And the only thing that's different is the amount and color of hair that he has. And it's just like, it's emotionally weird to watch the two. And it's like kind of heartwarming and beautiful and melancholy and so many things all at once. And it probably wouldn't mean anything to anybody else. But it was just, it's just an insane thing to see contrasted back to back. And Millie and I were both just like watching it. Kind of gobsmacked by it.

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I really, really, really loved seeing Pegboy play, and it was worth every ounce of effort it took to get there. And I will endeavor to see them live again, every opportunity I get until they stop playing. That's another, a big takeaway I had from this weekend, is that I have let too much time go. I've been too distracted by career. I traded, and this is an indictment on my other. I have a lot of interests, a lot of loves.

I love this video game world that I've been a part of the last 20 years, these comic book conventions and anime conventions and these things that I've gone to for work and that I've gone to to promote my different gigs. I love being a part of that world. I am of that world as well, but I traded music for that world when rooster teeth became a force to be reckoned with and that took all of my attention

and all of my excitement and my passion and my focus and my effort. And I didn't realize how much I missed it until I was on day two standing in a dusty field with 10,000 other people who felt like my brothers and sisters. I felt more at home at Riot Fest than I have felt in so many years. And I got very briefly so angry with myself for denying this for so long.

But then I realized that there's almost instantly I realized there's no point in looking backward like that. That I should do something about it today. I'm looking around. I was so taken aback. I got to see a breath of humanity around me. you know all walks of life ages and i got to see people my age i got to see people older than me and i got to feel pretty good about my mobility and my youth and the fact that i could be 50 years old

and standing in this crowd with people half my age and hanging in there just as well and i and the fact that there were dudes 10 and 15 and maybe even 20 years older than me that seemed to be hanging in there too i felt it made me realize how much time i have left i have time left that i have time left that i I don't think about it in that way, but I also can see the end of the road, and I know that it's coming. I mean, it's always been coming, but I am at a point now where it is coming, you know, and if I don't take advantage of the health that I have now, if I don't take full advantage of it, I am going to regret it someday down the road when it fails me and it is gone, and the options that I have available to me now are no longer available to me then, and I am not going to waste. another fucking day of my life. And that is a lot of meaning to derive from a music festival. But that was the prevailing feeling I had the entire weekend is that this was something that I had loved so dearly that was such a part of my life. And it was so weird. I saw DanceHaw Crashers play.

They were great. They looked great. But the last time I saw them play, I was 20. And here I am 50. And it's like, I haven't seen them in 30 years. You know, I was, I bring them up because I was just talking about them in this podcast the other day and how I kind of rediscovered them and I have been enjoying them. And then, voila, kismet, fate, here they are. I get to see them perform. They were lovely and it was awesome to see them perform. It's another example, just like Pegboy.

The last time I saw Larry DeMore in Pegboy play, he was probably 30. And now he's 61. The last time I saw Danceaw Crashers play, they were probably 25 and I was 20, 21. now they're all in our 50s. It's just, it's crazy to see because in my head they're the same age. They haven't aged. And I know that's dumb. And intellectually, you know that's dumb. And you don't even really think of it that way. You just feel it that way. Even if you know that's not the case, it's still evokes a fucking shocked, strong reaction from you when you see 30 years of growth on Matt Skiba's face or the, you know, whoever it is, the guy's from Weezer or whatever. And I was hit

and struck by that over and over again but not in a negative way in a this is how much time I allowed to lapse where I didn't enjoy something that meant to me so don't let it happen again

don't have this feeling again 10 years from now or 20 years from now don't ever feel this way again you know not that it was a bad feeling it was more of just like why didn't I why has this

elude in me for these many years why did I stop going to festival and stop going to see bands that I saw play. And I know why at the time I got burned out. I didn't want to do it anymore. You do something for so long, you go to three or four or five or six shows. You're going to get burned out.

But I shouldn't have let the pendulum swing so far away from things that I loved. And if you've ever done the same thing, I encourage you, maybe try to swing the pendulum back a little bit and see if the thing that you gave up on or that you forgot about or that you deprioritized for some other thing, maybe it still holds some meaning or relevance or affection to you because I am amazed at how much

I got out of a weekend in a dirty field with a bunch of gross, dirty people listening to music that was important to me when I was a teenager. I finally saw a screeching weasel play. Been a fan. A reluctant fan. Ben Weasel's a hard dude to be a fan of, but they make great music. And I read Maximum Rock and Roll religiously when I was a teenager. I finally got to see them play. I saw the Riverdale's play once, but I'd never seen Screech and Weasel. I think they played the entirety of my brain hurts. That was cool. That's not my favorite Screech and Weasel album, but it was cool to see them.

And I appreciated it. Bad Religion similarly, the billionth time I've seen them play, I was amazed at how good they still are and how full of energy they still are. And they played the entirety of Suffer, which was my favorite album for most of my life. And it was really cool to see it live and really fulfilling. It said it's the first time they've ever played the album in its entirety in Chicago. which was cool. They also played a few greatest hits. Like I said, they played Anastasia. They played how could hell be any worse. I wish they would have played a few other of my favorite

songs, but I've seen them play so many times in the past. I've been rewarded with those songs previously, so I can't complain. Sorry, I'm trying to wrap this up because I don't want to bore you guys to death. The final few bands that I saw that I want to talk about were the most impressive. I saw Lambrieney Girls. I've been hearing about Lambrieney Girls a lot. I've been listening to them a little bit. I like the album that I've heard. I've got three or four of their songs on my playlist. I can't say that I consider myself, like, I don't really know much about them other than I've just started to get into their music. They were really fun. They were just as good live as I kind of thought they would be, full of attitude, hyper-political, really into

performance. They talked to the crowd a lot. They were great. I highly recommend. I actually, you know what, let me finish where I'm going with this before I make this point. They were fantastic. And that leads into the performance of the event for me. which was a band that I have three songs on my playlist that I like and that I listen to all the time. And that's all I know about them is that Jason Saldana told me how much he liked them a year ago. So I added three or four songs to my playlist. I've been listening to those songs. I enjoyed them. And that's really all I knew about them until I saw idols perform what is maybe the presidency bias and an imperfect memory are leading to me saying this right now. I understand.

but maybe the single greatest performance I have ever seen in my life by a musical artist or artists. They, I don't even know how to, I don't know how to put it into words. It was the most impressed I've ever been. I've never seen a band, never seen a band command, a stage.

I've never seen a band command an audience like that. I've never, it, actually, Recently, I did, Alice Cooper had a similar level, a similar command of the stage. But these guys had a youthful energy and a brilliance and a looseness. Like, they were so musically tight, they were loose, if that makes any sense. And they just, like, each song was more intense and more insane than the last. And the conversations between the songs were poignant and political. And the explanation of songs really helped.

helped enrich and expand the experience. And they were so intense and fun. And they played for so long that everybody in that fucking crowd was transfixed. I turned around. It might have been the crowd of the event. Them or I stuck around later to see the Green Day crowd and that was pretty fucking big too.

But by the way, Green Day paled in comparison. We only watched like two songs, but they paled in comparison. No offense to Green Day. They were fine. But it paled in comparison to what I'm talking about from idols, what they did on stage. And if you've never seen idols,

you've never listened to idols, ID-L-E-S, they're a British band. If you've ever have the opportunity to interact with them in some way you should, watch a YouTube video, a TikTok, go see them live, listen to their album. I've never been more impressed with a live performance in my life. The last time I think I saw a band that blew me away to that level was Hot Water Music. They made me a fan in the moment. The last time I was made a fan on stage, I disliked that band on album. I saw them open up for Alkaline Trio or co-headlined with Alkaline Trio many, many, many, many years ago. And they were so good live. I instantly became a fan, bought two of their LPs at the show and then never looked back. I feel very similarly about idols, but more so. This was a more

impressive show. It was so grand, the performance. It was so full and it was so intense. At some point, Jack White came out and played with them for like seven instrumental minutes that was just insane. And then they said at the end, it was their last date on a 150 date tour. So he was like, this is the last time we're going to be playing music together for a very long time. And so you got the impression that they really wanted to celebrate what must have been a tremendously successful tour. And they were just, I've never, God damn, I feel like a cheerleader. But I, and it feels a little silly at 50 years old to be this excited about something. But I've never seen a band kill it.

Like that. It just, it was so fucking cool. And I cannot. It's, you're on the other side of this listening and you're like, all right, you're overselling it a bit, Jeff, but I don't care. No amount of, it is impossible for me to overhype that performance to you. If you ever get an opportunity to see a snippet of it or just see them, you'll understand. The only time I've ever been more impressed live in my life was when we saw Bill Callahan play at the Henry Miller Library in a big sir. and he played Drover, and it was like the earth stopped rotating for about six minutes. Go see idols, listen to idols, and back to the point that I almost made when I was talking about Lanbrini Girls, what the fuck is going on in England?

There is some really awesome rock and roll. I don't know if I'd call it punk or garage rock or whatever it is, but there is such awesome, intense, political, important music of the moment that is just so possessed of energy and an intensity and this is, these are the moments when a scene is happening, right? When something bigger is being born, think of the grunge movement so many years ago. There is something going on in England right now with rock and roll that I do not see present in America. And please, educate me if you are aware of bands as good as Lambrini girls or bands as good as idols that are playing in America right now that can provide that level of social commentary and point. and of the moment discourse while still presenting just punch you in the fucking face rock and roll

that is that good and fresh and feels new and of now and not recycled in any way. They don't sound like anyone else. They sound like whatever the fuck it is that they're doing and they're making right now in that scene. If you know of anybody in America that's doing that, please send me an email to Eric at jeffsboss.com. I'd love to know. And also, If you are more familiar with idols and those bands than I am and you can recommend a few others that are of the same ilk, I would love to expand my horizons because I'm so impressed and blown away with idols. It was the idols and Peg Boy and Stuff Little Fingers were, and the Beach Boys were for really any one of those experiences would have been enough to fly across the country for

to get to have all four of those and to get to share them with my daughter and celebrate her returning two decades old, made for just the most perfect weekend, I could ask for. And I count myself incredibly, incredibly lucky to have gotten to experience it. And I know so many of you did as well, because I got to meet you. And it was wonderful to get to stop and say hello and shoot the shit with all of you for a little bit. So thank you comment levers for saying hi. If you see me at a music festival in the future, and you will, because I'm going to start going to more. Please say hi and hang out. And don't be scared to ask for a pick if you want. It's deal. All right. Oh, shit. I just I'll write it out of here, but I got to, I owe you guys a song

of the episode. I got to go with Pegboy. They played My Youth. It's one of my favorite songs. They made fun of the fact that it is a song about youth escaping you and looking back and the introspection of realizing that your youth was gone and he wrote it when he was 25. But it's still a really good song. And it still hits even now. So listen to Pegboy, My Youth. That's your song of the episode. also listen to everything the idols the lambrini girls and ricko nasty have ever done all right