For its 20 year anniversary, Riot Fest hosted an incredible rock music festival that thousands of concertgoers will never forget. The event lasted from Sept. 19-21 at Douglass Park in Chicago, Illinois, with almost a hundred different acts performing.

Bands and artists of all different genres came together to put on an amazing show, ranging from relaxing classic rock bands like The Beach Boys, to heavy metal acts such as Gwar. For two decades now, this event has provided a great sense of community for music fans from all over the country to come together and appreciate decades of alternative culture.

The three main headliners were Blink-182, Weezer and Green Day, who served as a finale for each respective day of the show. Dozens of famous bands performed, but there were also plenty of small, more obscure acts, as well.

This served as a great opportunity for newer rock bands with smaller followings to have a place to showcase their potential to a significantly larger audience who likely had never heard of them before. For example, somebody out there who went on day two (Sept. 20) might have only bought a ticket for the sake of getting to see Weezer and All Time Low. But then they go and have the chance to see thirty other bands play; it is inevitable that they would have found a new band to fall in love with.

Festivals like Riot Fest are a great networking opportunity for artists and fans alike and most people do not appreciate that fact.

One particular performance that stood out was The Beach Boys. Starting all the way back in 1961, this classic rock powerhouse has been going strong for over six decades, making us concertgoers extremely fortunate to be able to see the surviving members play at such a massive, aggressive festival.

This is also a big surprise because their lead singer-songwriter, Brian Wilson, recently passed away at the age of 82 years old. It is shocking to see the band continue to play without their own frontman, but they were not shy about how much they missed him when it happened back in June. In a post on the band’s official Instagram account, Wilson’s bandmates said “… Brian Wilson wasn’t just the heart of The Beach Boys—he was the soul of our sound. The melodies he dreamed up and the emotions he poured into every note changed the course of music forever…” This made it a shock to see the band perform without Wilson by their side.

As a substitute, actor John Stamos took the reins and performed alongside The Beach Boys. He was seen as an unlikely, yet perfect fit for this job, because on social media he had been begging the organizers of Riot Fest to give him a chance to perform at a show for the past nine years. Now his day had finally come and fans seemed to enjoy the show.

Another performance that struck a chord with fans was the collaboration between Cobra Starship, The Academy Is… and Gym Class Heroes. Way back in 2006, these three bands came together and wrote a song called “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It),” which is still a fan favorite to this day.

This has not happened in years and no one expected it to happen again, but during Cobra Starship’s performance on day three (Sept. 21), members of The Academy Is… and Gym Class Heroes came onstage to perform this early-2000s emo classic all together.

This was a big deal because within the past fifteen years, all three of these bands have either disbanded or gone on long hiatuses, so to see all of them together onstage again was something completely unprecedented that fans around the world were shocked to see.

The crazy three-day weekend was an unforgettable experience for all who attended and despite tickets being expensive, going to Riot Fest is a great time that many would