Tales From The Fest: The Riot Before

Photo by Bill Shouldis

For this installment of Tales From The Fest, The Riot Before‘s guitar/vocalist Brett talks about breaking his Fest cherry last year and how the festivities have a deeper meaning than just getting silly drunk for three days. The Riot Before released their fantastic album Fists Buried In Pockets recently via Say-10 Records and you should check it out. Onward!

Last year was my first time at The Fest and I didn’t really know what to expect beyond the stories of inebriated fun I had recounted to me by those who’d been before. And while inebriated fun was completely, unsurprisingly, and happily represented over the weekend I attended, I was caught off guard by another aspect of The Fest that I had never expected. The Fest is not just a weekend of the best type of liver punishment, it’s also a family reunion.

Read more after the jump.

After spending the prior year and a half almost constantly on tour, I had not quite realized just how many great people I had met until I took my first walk down the University Ave. on Friday afternoon. I was completely shocked to find that on pretty much every block I ran into someone who was either in a band I had played with, had put my band up for the night, or was simply a cool person I had met at a show. It was like seeing all these individual days of tour accumulated on one street, for one weekend, and it was completely amazing.

It’s easy to get jaded on tour. It’s easy to get tired of shows and watching bands. It’s easy to get stuck in a routine, and The Fest last year was a renewal of all the things I loved about music and touring. It made it all fun again. My favorite story of The Fest last year isn’t really one incident in particular, but the constant and unexpected presence of a lot of good friends all in one place. I don’t get that very often. My friends are now split up in vans and cities all over this country, and the The Fest acts as this sort of homecoming for the homeless. I can’t wait to go back.