Brendan Kelly To Headline Next Riot Fest Showcase At Double Door
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 8, 2015 7:10PM
The inaugural Riot Fest showcase series at Double Door debuts Saturday night, but they're already looking to the future with the announcement of their May showcase. Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms will headline the evening, set to go down at Double Door on May 1. This installment is one we're proud to announce, and it was put together by Riot Fest, Red Scare and Double Door.
While Kelly's work in the Lawrence Arms is what he's best known for, and their explosive blast of riff-laden punk has always made the Chicago scene proud, his solo ventures provide a more varied tapestry. Songs under his own moniker or in his side projects never skimp on the melody, but they do experiment with finer tuned arrangements and colorful splashes of other genres that orbit around a more rootsy sensibility. We expect his solo set that evening to be one that doesn't stick to any one particular format over another, underscoring Kelly's restless musical nature.
Sam Russo will also take the stage that evening and we expect his impassioned acoustic style to fit right in. His style reminds us of the days when troubadours wore their hearts on their sleeves, while also not afraid to roll up those same sleeves in the face of a bar brawl or political fracas. His style is sensitive but with a real backbone.
Continuing the trend of punk rockers with acoustic guitars, Flatfoot 56's Tobin Bawinkel will also be playing under the name 6'10, delivering his own stamp to the stripped down vibe through the latter part of the evening.
Chicago's Last False Hope will play earlier in the evening and in this case we're looking at a full band assault more than capable of tearing it up and showing that a fiddle and banjo can be just as savage as a distortion pedal and full stack of amplifiers. Opening the evening is Sincere Engineer a.k.a. Deanna Belos' wailing voice and her own style of acoustic attack.
The Riot Fest Showcase with Brendan Kelly, Sam Russo, 6'10, Last False Hope and Sincere Engineer is on May 1 at Double Door, 1572 N Milwaukee, 6 p.m., $10, ALL AGES