It took over a year and a half, dozens of canceled shows and lots of nerves but finally, after all that the covid pandemic has brought, Simple Plan were finally able to once again step on the stage for the first time in forever – at Riot Fest in Chicago, IL yesterday, September 19th 2021.

Many fans have been wondering how come Simple Plan have canceled their appearance at the Pop Punk’s Still Not Dead tour with New Found Glory, yet they still decided to go ahead and perform at such a huge festival. The answer is simple – the danger of any of the crew contracting COVID-19 (and therefore endangering the cancelation of more dates) is way smaller at one outdoor festival than it would have been at a month-long tour, where they would have likely interacted with a lot more people in much smaller and enclosed spaces for a much longer time.

But let’s get going with the Riot Fest recap, yeah? The band kicked off their set at 5:30pm local Chicago time and what did the setlist looked like:

And do we have any first-hand scoops from the show? Of course we do! Our long-time reader May was there and she let us know that Pierre mentioned on the stage that the band will be releasing “new stuff in a few weeks” – turning the band’s “soon” into something slightly more concrete and less vague. According to May, Pierre did not specify whether that meant new song or new album, but we can definitely count on the word “music”.

In our gallery you can finally have a look at some of the first photos posted on Simple Plan’s official accounts from their appearance at Riot Fest:

And finally, get a glimpse at what being at a Simple Plan show in 2021 is like and check out this video capturing the band performing I’m Just A Kid at Riot Fest yesterday. Enjoy: