Music fans descended on North Lawndale’s Douglass Park as Riot Fest kicked off Friday with headliners Turnstile and the Foo Fighters.

The alternative rock music festival, which has a daily capacity of 50,000 attendees and is presenting more than 90 artists on five stages, has Saturday and Sunday headliners including Death Cab for Cutie and The Cure.

Riot Fest’s return to Douglass Park for 2023 was not always certain. The offbeat festival has faced criticism from some Little Village and North Lawndale residents as it sought a permit to use the park this year. Critics complained the event took away green space and brought traffic, noise and rowdy crowds. As it was awarded a permit, the festival highlighted efforts to engage the community with work opportunities, free tickets and even a showcase for a youth boxing program. Organizers also adjusted stage locations in an effort to minimize noise issues affecting nearby hospitals.

Friday afternoon, the punk festival traded in a “p” for an “f,” as funk legend George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic slung their bass-heavy hits on the Rise Stage. The band’s set came with an overflowing stage of musicians. Five played guitar or bass. One wore chunky white platform heels and had a bursting, royal blue Afro.

Clinton, 82, sat for much of the show. But when “Give up the Funk” started, he rose to howl.

”We gonna turn this mother out,” the band sang.

[ Guide to Riot Fest 2023: Best bands by day and what not to miss ]

Clinton wore a red rhinestoned cap. The rhinestones on fan Lucas Grant’s near-matching hat were silver. The 20-year-old Spring Grove resident said he came just to see Clinton on the groovy icon’s last tour.

”It was unbelievable, man! It was George Clinton, right there. It was so cool!” he said after watching from the front.

He was grateful the festival made space for the non-rock act. “It’s not so into the scene,” he said.

But the festival’s normal fare — headbanging punk music — was front and center a short walk away on the Roots Stage.

Code Orange frontman Jami Morgan emerged for his alternative metal band’s set wearing a tucked-in shirt that read, “I’m a barbarian.”

The band’s guitarists and bassist stomped across the stage in front of a banner depicting their logo of a sharp-toothed panther as the band released its shredding, heavy sound. Morgan’s slicked-back hair flipped as he launched his body around the stage.

The singer furiously punched the air as he screamed for the crowd. At one point, he harshly kicked his microphone stand. Later, he picked it up and swung it in circles like a discus, launching it into the side stage and swinging the corded mic around like a chain flail.

At some point, he began to bleed from his knee. He didn’t seem to notice.

Toward the end of the show, Morgan goaded the circling mosh pit in front of the stage.

“No matter if it’s a basement or an arena, we’re still Code Orange and we are out for blood,” he said. “I need crowd surfers. I need moshers.”

And he got what he asked for.

The singer menacingly walked around the stage as the band tore into their song “Forever.” Fans launched themselves into the air to crowd surf before being caught by security. Their somewhat organized mosh pit suddenly stopped moving in a circle, instead descending into disorganized, hard-swinging arms and legs.

And, of course, Morgan walked off the stage and into the arms of the crowd.

Fan Tom Spinelli said he got beat up among the flailing limbs — and he liked it.

The 26-year-old acknowledged that many people might not understand the allure of the at-times violent sound and chaotic crowd of the metal show.

“You get to let loose a little bit,” said the tourist visiting from Fort Myers, Florida, who had taken off his shirt by the time the show ended. “It’s fun.”

Morgan told the Tribune afterward that the band seeks to bring “a venom” to its shows, a venom he believes is lacking from alternative rock music.

“There used to be that, and it’s missing,” he said.

The band’s in-your-face edge is at the core of its sound, he said. “There’s a reason to listen to this kind of music as an outlet,” Morgan added. “What binds it together is intensity, living or dying up there.”

Riot Fest, independently run and born in Chicago, boasts activities outside of just music. There are carnival rides, games with stuffed animal prizes and a free arcade. Local merchants are scattered around the park selling jewelry, art, records and other goods. You can even get free tarot card readings.

At the youth boxing showcase, a group of gloved boys sparred with coaches and teammates in a red, white and blue boxing ring set up near food tents. Elsewhere, some attendees stopped to watch skateboarders tackle a halfpipe.

The festival also planned to offer legal marriages at its Wedding Chapel Saturday and Sunday.

Unlike the colorful festival outfits that can take over other events like Lollapalooza, the vibe is much more low-key at Riot Fest, where the crowd at times seems to just be a sea of black band T-shirts. Still, more creative looks were sprinkled throughout, like a pair of friends sporting white fairy wings or a woman in an orange skirt covered in fake fall foliage.

A decidedly younger group packed the grass in front of ultra-aggressive hardcore band Turnstile’s stage. And that crowd, filled with mohawks, mullets, dyed hair and piercings, rioted for a markedly treacherous show.

Instead of one large mosh pit, the lawn was scattered with countless shifting pockets of anarchy. The band’s high-speed, heavy punk rock sound electrified its fans, who sang every word as they tried to keep their breath inside a torrent of shoves and collisions — essential features of Turnstile’s hallmark live chaos.

The fans hurled themselves at one another indiscriminately, careful to pick up anyone who fell. People held up lost phones, shoes, watches and hats amid the fray. They grew increasingly sweaty and emboldened as the music continued.

As the band played its last song in a set dominated by their most recent album, “Glow On,” lead singer Brendan Yates insisted they keep coming closer.

“The stage needs you. Get up here. Get up here,” he said.

More brawny security guards came to line the rail. The reinforcements were needed. Dozens of fans were lifted up and carried toward the stage.

“It’s a very unique experience. These guys are coming at you pretty fast,” said one security guard, who shared his name only as Darrell after the show. “Some people, they see danger. I just see I gotta help somebody.”

Crowd surfing is a “lost art,” he said. The guard estimated he caught 50 crowd surfers himself during the show. To catch a crowd surfer, guards must raise them and pull them over the metal railing, he said.

“You cradle them like a baby,” he said.

Jake Michalek, who managed the Frontline Security forces during the chaotic show, said his guards will catch thousands of flying fans during Riot Fest. Once caught, the fans exit to the side of the stage and return to the lawn, he said.

“We just make sure they don’t hit their head, land safely and are able to get back in the crowd,” Michalek said. Crowd surge — when the pressure of overcrowding and fans pushing forward can be dangerous, especially at the front of the stage — is a concern that large music festivals have had to take seriously in recent years, especially since fatalities at a concert in Houston in 2021.

A huge crowd filled the festival’s corner of Douglass Park to watch headliner band the Foo Fighters close out the night with a massive two-hour set on the Riot Stage.

Music icon Dave Grohl — a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee — paced the front of the elaborately lit stage as he sang and played a navy blue guitar in a show rife with emotional highs and lows. The charismatic, multi-instrument frontman recalled playing decades ago at Wrigleyville’s Cubby Bear bar.

As he sang the band’s hit “My Hero,” hands across the sprawling crowd rose as fans belted the chorus.

“There goes my hero,” they sang. “He’s ordinary.”

Riot Fest runs noon (gates open 11 a.m.) to 10 p.m. Sept. 15-17 in Douglass Park, 1401 S. Sacramento Drive. The main entrance is at the corner of W. Ogden Avenue and Sacramento. Tickets and more information at riotfest.org