A name like Riot Fest isn’t subtle. And back in July, neither were the residents of Byers, Colo.
“Last year we were subjected to 20 hours of abuse by the extreme nonstop noise,” one resident told the Arapahoe County Board of Commissioners as part of his objection to 2014’s Riot Fest. “If approved this year, it will mean more than 30 hours of the same.”
While “abuse” is a pretty strong word, it’s not hard to understand how the tiny town of 1,100 might take issue with being overrun by 15,000 attendees, at least 2,000 of whom were expected to camp. And so the sonically abused town got its way, and Riot Fest’s permits were denied in July. The festival, which had already sold a lot of tickets, scrambled.
“I am utterly incensed,” festival organizer Mike Petryshyn (Riot Mike) wrote in a blog post. “Elementary ideological forces and manipulation veiled in contradictory legal jargon prevented us from coming back to May Farms [the Byers location] this year. Simply, we were duped. Certain groups, residents and so forth did not want you or us in their town, and there is something morally dishonest and unforgiveable with their actions.”
Petryshyn’s blog post included a call to the local youth not to take it too personally, to remember that community is based on divergent opinions and to remember that music can help guide you through existential strife.
“The fact of the matter is that even in this day and age, ignorance resides and the words ‘Riot Fest’ unfoundedly scares people,” he wrote. “Punk rock still scares people. Intelligence and wit scares people. And we all know if we were named Good Ole Country Riot Fest, we would have never been in this situation.”
Petryshyn also wrote that though the festival always knew it could sell more tickets in Denver, Byers had been chosen because the organizers deliberately sought out depressed and rural neighborhoods and areas for events to give them an economic boost, a model that had worked well in Riot Fest’s other incarnations in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas.
But with the carpet yanked from beneath their feet, they went back to the big city and booked the festival into Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium in Denver, where it will continue as scheduled — the bands, the carnival games, mini-golf course, pieeating contest and more.
The merits of the headlining acts — The Cure, Wu-Tang Clan and The Descendents, to name a few — are largely self-evident. And further extolling them here isn’t much in the way of news. But there are more than 70 acts on the bill, and for some of them, it’s as much a shot at the big time as it is a day at the office for those with top billing.
One of those bands is The Epilogues, Denver favorites that despite flirting with a deal with Sony Records, haven’t yet broken onto the national scene.
“That was our first legit, we’re-notjust-playing-for-shits-and-giggles-anymore festival,” Nathanial Hammond, the band’s resident synth wizard and t-shirt designer, says of playing at the Mile High Music Festival in 2010. “I remember we were on the same stage as Weezer, Teen and Fenix, and looking stage right and seeing Rivers Cuomo and the singer for Fenix was standing stage right and I was like, ‘Holy shit.’”
And Hammond isn’t shy about being a little starstruck about Riot Fest as well. The Epilogues are playing the Byers Country Feed stage Sunday, Sept. 21 at 1:45 p.m. Later in the day, that stage will host hip hop icons Wu-Tang Clan.
“I made a t-shirt with Peyton Manning and it says, ‘Peyton Manning knows you protect your neck,’” he says. “My only goal is to meet the RZA and hopefully give him a t-shirt.”
And then there’s The Cure.
“As a synth player, and kind of growing up in that era, they take the cake,” he says. “When’s the last time The Cure even legitimately went out on tour?”
But that said, Hammond and company aren’t just riding coat-tails. The band has played SXSW seven years in a row and played the CMJ industry showcase in New York City. They may be at the bottom of the bill, but they’re not an also-played.
“It’s here in Denver, but we’re not being treated that way,” he says. “It’s our home market, and we still get that top billing. I think that’s a measure that we have a bit of a draw.”
Hammond says that sort of exposure also helps keep the band on people’s minds as it retreats from the touring circuit to work on a new album.
“People can forget about you real quick,” Hammond says.
There are too many moving parts to pin anything down, but the band is hoping to get the new record out next spring. “I feel like the record is really good, personally,” Hammond says. “We’re putting down some of the stuff that we really weren’t good enough to do a couple of years ago.”
Those not willing to wait until 2015 for that new material can get a taste at Riot Fest.
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