As the average music fan/addict/junkie/connoisseur/pundit knows – every festival has a high point that creates an indescribable moment and they bounce off each other to map out significant points of your life. In the case of Riot Fest, you need to forget everything else. Just throw it out the window or abandon it like one of your old sticker-tattered CD binders that may (or may not) contain two copies of Limp Bizkit’s Chocolate Starfish. The reason being Riot Fest is in a class of its own. It started almost ten years ago with a promise to connect with its community and not the mainstream and it’s kept that promise with its Toronto edition expanding to Downsview Park only to slam every head with every corner of the punk genre. If you weren’t waiting in line to the chords of Laura Stevenson or Title Fight, you were pit-deep into a Glassjaw or Circa Survive set that rarely visits the north. And if you weren’t watching your soul flee your body to the tune of Alkaline Trio and Brand New, you were likely praising Billy Talent and The Flaming Lips for making your heart beat faster than it should. The unofficial kick-off for Riot Fest was a mud-filled affair but as you’ll notice, every single band held nothing back.
Check out our galleries below via our photogs Joel Pilotte and Josh Mahoney and scroll through our other stills from Riot Fest Toronto Sunday.
GLASSJAW at ROCK STAGE
CIRCA SURVIVE at ROOTS STAGE
THE BEACHES at REBEL STAGE
NEW FOUND GLORY at RIOT STAGE
MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA at ROCK STAGE
CITIZEN at REBEL STAGE
ALKALINE TRIO at RIOT STAGE
TAKING BACK SUNDAY at ROCK STAGE
AWOLNATION at ROOTS STAGE
BRING ME THE HORIZON at ROCK STAGE
PENTIMENTO at REBEL STAGE
RISE AGAINST at ROCK STAGE
DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 at RIOT STAGE
BILLY TALENT at ROCK STAGE
FLAMING LIPS at ROOTS STAGE
