Behind the scenes of Riot Fest 2025

This year’s Riot Fest celebrated its 20th anniversary in Douglass Park. Headlined by alternative veterans blink-182, Weezer, and Green Day, the weekend became a festival of surprise performances. Jack White joined IDLES for their Joy as an Act of Resistance song “Never Fight A Man With A Perm,” Cobra Starship brought out Gym Class Heroes leader Travie McCoy and William Beckett from the Academy Is… for “Bring It (Snakes on a Plane), and Descendents’ Stephen Egerton and Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba joined blink-182 for “Hope.”

Read more: 10 criminally underrated blink-182 songs

After over a decade of the festival trying to get John Stamos to perform, he finally conceded and played with the Beach Boys — but not without some stipulations. For him to play, festival founder Riot Mike had to get a tattoo of a stick of butter and Stamos’ last name, a John Stamos look-alike contest had to be hosted by the festival, and a Greek-style pizza needed to be created and named after him — “The Stamos Supreme” — by a local Chicago pizza restaurant. He also hopped onstage for Hanson’s set during the fan-favorite “MMMBop.”

See portraits from some of this year’s performers below, shot by Ryan Bakerink.