AVONDALE — The hottest concert in Chicago this summer didn’t require tickets, though a life jacket wouldn’t have hurt.

The first-ever Great River Parade took over the North Branch of the Chicago River Saturday, with nine bands on five pontoon boats floating down the waterway. The festivities were organized by musician Ben Kinsinger, who threw the river parade to celebrate three years of his Secret River Shows.

The Secret River Shows have bands — including Lawrence Tone, Kinsinger’s group — play sets from a concrete pylon in the Chicago River, with fans watching from the space below the adjacent Belmont Avenue bridge.

Kinsinger had long explored the spot under the bridge, but garbage had always cluttered the space. When he found it clean one day, he realized he could transform the neglected space into a gathering area for the community.

“If we do something here, it could stay clean. We need human energy to activate the space,” Kinsinger said on Saturday. “And that’s kind of what we’ve got now. Since I’ve been doing shows, it’s been like this. The guy under the bridge, David over there, he helps out. The community extends to all who interact with this space.”

The secret is out now, with the River Shows gaining popularity and media coverage. To celebrate and build on the series’ growth, Kinsinger threw Saturday’s city-sanctioned parade, which saw groups perform from elaborately decorated boats and from the concrete river pylon.

A performer plays the drum while the first band gets ready to perform in the Great River Parade near Belmont Avenue on the Chicago River in North Center on July 19, 2025. The parade was delayed two hours due to heavy rain. Credit: Anastasia Busby for Block Club Chicago

Ben Kinsinger, head organizer of the Great River Parade, stands for a portrait in his mask near Belmont Avenue in North Center on July 19, 2025. Credit: Anastasia Busby for Block Club Chicago

Five large pontoons flanked Kinsinger’s small raft Saturday. The parade was scheduled to make three stops: at Richard Clark Park, the Belmont Avenue Bridge and the Wild Mile. But after a two-hour rain delay, the floating parade bypassed its first stop and headed straight to where the concert series all started under the bridge.

By 2:45 p.m., the sun had burnt away the remnants of the cloudy skies over Chicago and a gaggle of kayakers surrounded the makeshift stage.

Dubbing himself the “River King,” Kinsinger rowed himself and other local bands out on a small raft where they played acoustic sets for in-the-know musicians and passersby. Wearing a loose blouse, wide-brimmed sun hat and a cycloptic eye mask, Kingsinger created a surrealist scene in a secretive part of the North Branch.

With its colorful and ever-evolving graffiti gracing its concrete walls, the Belmont bridge structure is a prime spot for Chicago’s urban explorers. On Saturday, the DIY organizers elevated the space with a disco ball suspended from the ceiling and a small grill cooking up hot dogs for a hungry audience.

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Looking out onto the river from the gritty auditorium, attendees could see the first pontoon gliding toward the pylon. Draped in gauzy, orange fabric and decorated with a 7-foot, purple arch in the shape of a monster mouth that opened into a rainbow tent, the boat ushered in the gonzo theme of the day.

Wearing his mask and hat, Kinsinger climbed up the pylon’s ladder while a woman dressed in a blue, flowing robe and golden headdress struck graceful poses on a floating barge. As an artist known as Risa played a purple harp, a 6-foot long hand and long tube made of plastic bags unfurled from the top of the bridge and danced in the breeze.

“I come here to see how he [Kinsinger] uses his imagination to make this community,” said Sherry Wang, the artist who danced on the barge. “It’s a free music kingdom. I feel the floating canvas of the whole environment, and it’s interactive with art and nature.”

The fourth band of the day, Cielito Lindo, performs at the Great River Parade on the Chicago River in North Center on July 19, 2025. Credit: Anastasia Busby for Block Club Chicago

The fourth band of the day, Cielito Lindo, performs at the Great River Parade on the Chicago River in North Center on July 19, 2025. Credit: Anastasia Busby for Block Club Chicago

Another float transporting the band JFK Health World, named after the defunct children’s museum, sported a large cylinder modeled after a cyclonic separator decorated with multicolored tissue paper.

“It’s an old filtration system and they’re all over Chicago, kind of like an artifact of the industrial past that’s still on a lot of buildings,” the float’s artist, Drew Reynolds, said of his makeshift cyclonic separator. “They feel very sculptural and [we’re] trying to model it after an old homecoming or Fourth of July floats that bring the community together where people work together to put tissue on chicken wire.”

Diego Lucero, one of three brothers in the father-and-sons mariachi band Cielito Lindo, has loved the underpass since he started visiting the spot to spray paint graffiti in 2020. His band wore subtle clown makeup and rode up to the pylon with a posse of sunbathing clowns dressed in red and white costumes. As blazing heat and humidity ramped up, Cielito Lindo covered Weezer’s “Island in the Sun,” adding mariachi horns and a Spanish verse.

“I don’t know if the fandom has a name yet,” Lucero said to the audience. “Maybe the trolls, because you’re all under a bridge.”

People gather near the Belmont Avenue during the Great River Parade in North Center on July 19, 2025. Credit: Anastasia Busby for Block Club Chicago

Waverly Cayo leans her head on her partner, Cameron Back, during Ponyboy and the Idiots’ performance near Belmont Avenue on the Chicago River in North Center on July 19, 2025. Back’s brother is Ponyboy. Credit: Anastasia Busby for Block Club Chicago

As the last band to perform at the parade’s Belmont stop, Lawrence Tome prepared for their set by snacking on tavern pizza and sipping PBRs. The band recalled how the concert began as an acoustic set to one that has added generators for amps.

At times their audience has included a motorcycle gang that buzzed under the bridge to joggers who have caught sight of the concert from above. Although they share fond memories of its smaller, early days, flutist Eric Novack appreciates the growing audience.

“It’s nice to just have the intimate, you just kind of wander in, like ‘What is this?’ Now it doesn’t have that mystique in the same way, but at the same time it’s cool to have a s— ton of people,” Novack said. “Loss of mystique is a natural part of progress.”

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