Riot Fest final secret show with The Falcon

Saturday night the fine folks at Riot Fest put on their last "secret" show of the year at the same location they did all the other ones, the AAA building in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. As with the previous shows, admission was by invitation only and it was the recession friendly price of free!

Park Ridge, IL's No Enemy were an unannounced opening act for the show. They were a melodic punk/hardcore band with short and mostly fast songs. The crowd was already quite full already and many of them seemed to enjoy the band who played about a half hour long set. After their set they were giving away free copies of their CD to anyone who came up to their merch table to request one which made for an early Xmas gift for those who took them up on the offer.

The Falcon took the little stage soon after since they were sharing equipment with No Enemy there was very little setup required. The band on stage looked suspiciously like the Lawrence Arms and that would be for the fact that The Falcon is made up mainly of members of that band including sharing the same singer/guitar player.

The place was almost full to capacity by the time they started and they looked eager for the band to play. It didn't take but one song before a small mosh pit started and people were bouncing around. The band played some melodic punk with a hint of hardcore influence in a few songs, and a lot of the songs were reminiscent of some Lawrence Arms material which is pretty much unavoidable considering the band contains most of the Lawrence Arms members in it.

The band played "all the songs they knew" and as well as a couple of cover songs I couldn't identify.The set was very entertaining to everyone in attendance and when the band was finished many were clamoring for more which the band was sadly unable to accommodate since they played everything they knew!

The final Riot Fest sponsored show of the year was every bit as fun as all the ones that preceded it and hopefully 2010 will bring some more shows like this one as they are always a good time.