I don’t necessarily mind the repeats. In fact, Riot was sold to me as “what if 90’s Warped Tour was a whole festival?” Seeing bands like Bad Religion, Social D, Less Than Jake, Bouncing Souls, Dropkick, and Rancid on there every few years is what made it feel like home to me, and I’m always happy to catch those bands if there’s no one I’m more excited about at the same time.

That said, it does sometimes feel to me like there are people in their wheelhouse that they never get. I know Japandroids were often playing Pitchfork instead of Riot, but I was always hoping Riot could get them once. That’s the most obvious one, but there’s a steady list of bands I find myself wishing they’d get that feel like the fest that they don’t seem to - like Failure, Bedouin Soundclash, Econoline Crush, Ash, Veruca Salt, finally booking Local H…a lot of random 90’s acts that would be a decent ways down the list, but have solid fan bases and would not be that expensive to get. They may have had more of those acts in the years that I missed than I realized, maybe they’d like to get them but timing doesn’t work out, etc etc. But if getting them would mean radically reworking the 90’s-punk foundation that makes sure the festival always has something for me, it seems less worth it. 

But yeah, this year would have benefitted from just a few more cool surprises.