(in double hindsight)
In 2013, so five years before the first edition of Left of the Dial, we flew to Chicago to see one of The Replacements’ reunion shows. As you probably know by now, they’re the band after whose song we named the festival.
They hadn’t performed in over 20 years and were only going to play a couple of shows in the USA. Being the huge fans we are, we got on a plane.
They played Riot Fest, an outdoor festival not unlike any other festival we’ve been to, but the lineup was pretty amazing. We saw Blondie, Guided By Voices, Dinosaur Jr. and tons of other bands.
However, the thing we loved most about Riot Fest was the way they spoke to their ticketholders. Their emails and website were refreshingly funny and honest. They created a world you just wanted to be part of long before arriving in Chicago.
After 2013, there was no real reason for us to go back to Riot Fest, but we kept our subscription to their newsletter and continued admiring the way they communicated. Time and time again, they proved there’s nothing wrong with doing things your own way. When we started Left of the Dial in 2018, we definitely drew inspiration from them.
Now, a couple of days ago, Riot Fest announced their 2026 lineup and, for the first time, four bands are playing who we consider ‘friends of the family’, meaning they all played Left of the Dial before.
It made us extremely happy in a weird, full-circle kind of way.
Which makes no sense, we know.
We could say it feels really special that friends of the family are playing the festival where we first heard Left of the Dial played live, but in all honesty, when we were watching The Replacements in 2013, we had no idea we were going to name our festival Left of the Dial. We weren’t even seriously thinking about organising a festival at all.
Besides, those friends of the family would have achieved everything they have without ever playing our festival and, moreover, they’ve played, and will play, hundreds of other festivals. Riot Fest will be just another show for them.
Still… it kind of feels like an achievement.
But enough of this embarrassing self-absorbed drivel...
We wish Gurriers, Deadletter, Remember Sports and Cardinals the best time ever in Chicago, and we hope that if they run into anyone involved in Riot Fest marketing, they’ll tell them that, in hindsight, they were slightly life-changing for a small festival in Rotterdam.
Big love,
The rioters of Left of the Dial
PS:
As it turned out, those ‘couple of reunion shows’ eventually became a European tour and, soon after Riot Fest, The Replacements announced a show in Amsterdam. So at the time, it felt a bit pointless that we had gone to the trouble of going to Chicago. But hindsight sometime changes and in today’s hindsight we know it was totally worth it.
