Riot Fest Celebrates 20 Years With "Weird Al," Controversial GWAR Set, & John Stamos' Long-Awaited Debut [Photos/Videos]

This past weekend’s Riot Fest produced a slew of headlines, most of which weren’t about the hard-rock, punk, and metal festival’s 20th anniversary. Though blink-182, Weezer, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Jack White, and Green Day were the headliners, sets by GWAR, The Beach Boys, and IDLES have drawn the most attention to the weekend’s activities in Chicago’s Douglass Park.

On the lighter side, Saturday’s second day of Riot Fest marked the fulfillment of a long-awaited prophecy. Festival attendees have seen Full House actor and occasional Beach Boy John Stamos at the festival for years; however, paradoxically, this was Stamos’ first time at Riot Fest. That’s because, for over a decade, Riot Fest has been actively trying to court Uncle Jesse with outlandish installations, ranging from a full-sized “Butter Stamos” statue, serving “Stamos Style” pizza, to hosting an art show dedicated to the actor. It all stemmed from the festival’s unsuccessful efforts to book a reunion show by Stamos’ band, Jesse & The Rippers, in 2013.

I’m a little disappointed that @JohnStamos hasn’t gotten back to us about the Jesse & The Rippers reunion show at #riotfest

— Riot Fest (@RiotFest) June 19, 2013

Riot Fest 2025 was a testament to persistence paying off, as Stamos performed Saturday with the Mike Love-led iteration of The Beach Boys, of which he’s been an honorary member since 1985. But before Stamos agreed to play the festival, he had some conditions.

His list of nine demands included that festival found Riot Mike had to get a tattoo of the actor (he did, featuring butter and Greek restaurant-style lettering), the festival had to host a Stamos lookalike contest (they did), his green room had to include a John Stamos body pillow, a nude painting of Bea Arthur, and unlimited hummus served in a Gibson guitar case (still waiting on confirmation for that one). Additionally, nobody was allowed to look at Stamos’ hair, and the festival was required to provide John Stamos masks for the crowd to wear. It is almost certain that the dozen years spent courting Stamos, and his good-natured rebuttals, were far more entertaining than seeing 84-year-old rock n’ roll supervillian Mike Love sing “Kokomo”.

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On the heavier side, Bristol’s angriest band IDLES used their lead-in set to festival closer Green Day to welcome Jack White out for a sit-in. White played the previous day ahead of Weezer‘s performance of The Blue Album, but stuck around to join IDLES’ onstage post-punk melee on “Never Fight a Man with a Perm”. While White is already an animated performer, the guitarist dialed up his spastic gesticulations and screeching guitar riffs to get in the pit with IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen.

IDLES, Jack White — “Never Fight A Man With A Perm” — Riot Fest — 9/21/25

[Video: sharmony64]

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And on the right (wing) side, intergalactic shock-metal rockers GWAR stirred up online controversy for disembelowing a masked version of President Donald Trump and strangling him with his own intestines (they also beheaded Elon Musk and chopped Vladimir Putin‘s hands off before ripping open his chest). It’s a longstanding tradition for GWAR to behead heads of state onstage to their song “El Presidente”, and have executed every sitting president since Ronald Reagan, regardless of party—as well as everyone from Michael Jackson to Jesus of Nazareth. Many in the MAGA movement, however, didn’t see the viral clips as innocent stage antics, with the conservative New York Post citing critics who called out the band for “normalizing violence.”

A representative for GWAR responded to the New York Post, “Normalizing violence? Humans don’t need GWAR for that. There is nothing normal about the Looney Toon violence acted out on a GWAR stage. GWAR is absurdist spectacle. GWAR is to violence what the New York Post is to journalism. Ridiculous.”

GWAR — “El Presidente” — Riot Fest — 9/20/25

[Video: SuperCar]