Perry Julien
By now, Shaky Knees devotees know to plan for any weather. Over the last 13 years, the three-day music festival has gone on under skies balmy, stormy, and everything in between. In fact, one might argue you haven’t really done Shaky Knees properly until you’ve huddled under a rapidly failing plastic poncho with a friend or stranger, both of you determined to see a favorite band perform, even as your socks fill with water.
This year, on Saturday night, Mother Nature put to the test both the enthusiasm of fans and the emergency preparedness of festival organizers with an absolute bonanza of a thunderstorm, which dumped buckets of rain across metro Atlanta, in addition to lightning, wind speeds reaching more than 60 mph and, in some places, even hail. The storm forced festival organizers to temporarily evacuate the park, escorting thousands to the exits while waiting for the bad weather to pass.
Perry Julien
Luckily, no one was hurt, and by 9:20, the gates had reopened, in time for headliner Twenty One Pilots to close out the night. By the time everyone returned on Sunday, spirits were high again, and the only vestiges of the previous evening’s mayhem were some slick tracks of mud and overheard tales from attendees boasting of the crazy hijinks they’d gotten up to during the festival interlude.
As usual, Atlanta’s team was there to take photos, observe the crowds—and, of course, enjoy three nights of great music. Here’s some of what we saw at the 13th annual Shaky Knees.
Friday
The sun was shining but the weather was scorching when Shaky Knees opened on Friday afternoon. A sizable crowd—if heavy on the indie dads—amassed for Gen-Z rockers Geese, which lit up the Piedmont Stage with popular tracks “2122” and “Crusades.” Over on Ponce De Leon Stage, curious attendees flocked to see Danny Elfman, unsure what to expect from the film composer known for his many Tim Burton collaborations. To the surprise of at least one attendee—but likely many more—Elfman, who is 73, appeared shirtless, bearing a mural of tattoos and a six-pack, to deliver a glam-metal performance featuring screaming electric guitars, a string ensemble, and a chorus of discordant vocalists. It was a solid rock show in its own right, by Elfman made time for some cinematic flair, including an orchestral performance of the Simpsons theme song (perhaps to go with his flame orange-dyed hair) and “This is Halloween” from his Burton collaboration, A Nightmare Before Christmas.
Perry Julien
At the end of the night, The Strokes gathered most of the day’s attendees together at the Peachtree Stage for a rip-roaring closing act. The consummate indie rock band of the early 2000s, the Strokes, led by a still-crystal clear Julian Casablancas, whipped the crowd into an ebullient frenzy with a string of classics, including “Reptilia,” “Last Nite” and “Selfless.” Casablancas took some unexpected, but charming, liberties with the vocals on “The Adults Are Talking,” and the band skipped an encore due to sound issues, a problem that cropped up during several sets this weekend. Nevertheless, the crowds left tired, sweaty, and happy, ready to return to Piedmont Park the next day.
Perry Julien
Saturday
Weather was the headline for Day Two of Shaky Knees. The day started in sweltering temperatures, reaching the mid 90s in the afternoon with a heat index of 100 degrees. Fans mostly kept to the shade and sat on the hillside of Piedmont Park’s Meadow to take in early performers like the Australian indie rock band Rum Jungle and 2000s favorite Minus the Bear for the end of their 20th anniversary tour. In the evening, stages began to swell for Congress the Band and Peach Pit, whose frontman Neil Smith told the crowd to soak in a moment of shade as clouds began to form.
Perry Julien
Just before 7 p.m., those clouds would mean evacuation en masse. The next sets of Taking Back Sunday and Blood Orange were interrupted a few songs in, with lightning in the area and directions for fans to step away from metal structures. Lightning gave way to downpour, and Shaky Knees announced a weather evacuation. Fans took shelter anywhere and everywhere, first under park trees and then under porches at homes neighboring the park and businesses like Willy’s and Shake Shack on Piedmont Avenue and Larakin on 12th Avenue. As streets flash-flooded in Midtown, a festival-goer shouted, “Shaky Knees? More like Soaky Knees!”
Communication was limited until shortly before 9 p.m. when Shaky Knees announced the show would go on, no matter how wet and tired. Doors reopened at 9:20 p.m. for Twenty One Pilots to perform until curfew at 11 p.m. (Fans took to social media after the announcement to voice their displeasure of the short notice and a lack of refund for the day.) Twenty One Pilots lead singer Tyler Joseph thanked fans for coming back out after the rain, and the band made the most of it with a punchy set list of hits such as “Stressed Out” and “Trees,” complete with live flames onstage.
Perry Julien
Sunday
Shaky Knees wrapped up the weekend with a banger lineup of Millennial nostalgia and a few sound issues that detracted, but never derailed, from the show. A hiccup at the beginning of the OK GO set turned into a charming moment of improv, when frontman Damian Kulash switched to an acoustic set for two songs while tech crews fixed a sound glitch, singing “Last Leaf” for the rapt crowd that was close enough to hear him. Over on the Peachtree Stage, Santigold, in a billowy white outfit alongside a similarly stylish, white-clad band and dancers, didn’t blink an eye when staff cut the sound to warn attendees to stop rushing the barricades: she’d brought up audience members to dance onstage for “Creator” and the euphoric vibes of everyone involved were enough to carry everyone until the sound came back on.
Crowds swelled for stellar back-to-back performances by Modest Mouse and Wu-Tang Clan, and grew to truly epic proportions by the time LCD Soundsystem took the Peachtree Stage around 8 pm. An absolute sea of people offered up vocal accompaniment—with surprising skill—for the Brooklyn rockers’ hits such as “Home” and “Dance Yourself Clean.” Live music rapture had reached its pinnacle with the closing number, “All My Friends,” but was cut devastatingly short when the band’s enthusiastic performance blew out the speakers, cutting off the music at the apex of the song. Crowd and band finished together, undaunted by the technical mishap.
Perry Julien
On energy alone, LCD Soundsystem’s high-octane performance could have been a festival-closing headliner, but Gorillaz followed with a multimedia, guest-star-studded show worthy of its top billing. Damon Albarn, the human engine of the four-member digital avatar band, wove together the virtual and the live with projections of his animated musicians appearing behind the in-person band, their signature toothy smirks a familiar sight from their early-aughts heyday.
A string of surprise Atlanta guests joined Albarn onstage, including Earthgang, Bootie Brown, and Kara Jackson. Albarn implored attendees to vote in the midterms—“What happens in America affects everyone,” he noted—before jumping back into the all-senses-engaged performances. He rounded out the night with Gorillaz’s biggest hits, including “Clint Eastwood” and “Feel Good, Inc.” As Shaky Knees drew to a close, the lights from the stage and the roar from the crowd reached into the night sky— lightning and thunder of another kind entirely.
Perry Julien
