Friday’s lineup at smaller stages crushed while headliners slayed
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Despite some major adjustments, Friday was one of the best days in the history of Shaky Knees.
It should come as no surprise, though; this festival has always been a fluid experiment.
Shaky has faced myriad challenges over the years. Weather has always been a thing. In fact, organizers leaned into the potential (or probability, as it were) of rain by alluding to as much on the festival’s merchandise in the early days.
The festival has also moved about Atlanta over its tenure. It started in Masquerade Music Park back in 2013. After stops in Atlantic Station and Central Park, the event moved to Centennial Park for a few years. For the last several years, it has found a home back at Central Park in Old Fourth Ward.
In this locale, the activities are split up in two almost equal parts. The larger half of the festival holds the Peachtree and Piedmont stages, as well as a righteous selection of activations and edible delicacies. Peachtree is one of the finest main stages at any festival we’ve attended. If you know how to freak it, you can always get a good view of the action, and it sounds good no matter your perspective. Piedmont is the festival’s least appealing stage, but that’s no surprise. In almost every case, a festival’s second-largest stage suffers the most. Who knows why, but it’s the truth.
The other half of the grounds owned much of the opening day of the 2024 edition of Shaky Knees, though.
This sector hosts the Ponce de Leon Stage, the Criminal Records Stage and much of the vending options at the festival (our favorite is Status Serigraph).
If the aforementioned Peachtree wasn’t cool enough, Criminal Records has long been our favorite stage at any festival.
Unfortunately, Criminal got moved this year from a Sherwood Forest-like canopy to a regular ol’ piece of property or whatever. It hurt to even look at the map before arrival.
But something brilliant happened on Friday. The weather cooperated, with the sun and clouds tangoing with perfect rhythm. And while there were a few farmer’s tans and bra lines to be seen among attendees, the reprieve that fans had grown so accustomed to in Criminal’s old residence was not so sorely missed.
With favorable skies above, the newly positioned stages rotated turns, and they both went hard all day.
The run, which will be relayed in further detail below, featured Winona Fighter, Ray Bull, Maserati, Wine Lips, POND, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and All Them Witches. Fans of good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll didn’t have to move more than 10 feet, really, to see all of these bands in the stretch between 1:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Then it was off to see the other end of the site, and, while shorter in time, this run featured heavier hitters (in name recognition at least) in Interpol, Arcade Fire and Noah Kahan. The latter closed the first day in his Shaky Knees debut with a fervent batch of radio-friendly Americana pop, much to the massive crowd’s delight.
It’s easy to compare Kahan to the likes of Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers or any other number of fast-strumming, banjo-wielding hitmakers of the modern era. But that’s lazy.
Kahan is infinitely likable. His “I can’t believe I’m here” persona translates well into the wide-eyed (literally) crooner onstage.
His songs speak to both torture and hope, and his lyricism is more admirable and thorough than you might imagine from someone getting this much radio play. And while he spends much of his set with a lone spotlight focused on him and his guitar, the music really stretches when his band gets involved. It gets him moving, too. By the end of the set, Kahan looked like Bruce Pearl in the second half of a close one, but his vocal range didn’t suffer in the least.
Here’s the rest from opening day. – Rusty Odom
Maserati
The Athens-originated crew filled in admirably with the tough assignment of having to replace Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs on Friday afternoon. These Georgia legends played instrumental, electronic-meets-traditional jams like “Monoliths” and “Pyramid of the Sun” identical to their record versions. Drummer Mike Albanese made sure the tone was set with impeccable timing that led flawlessly into the hard-rock acts that were to follow. Albanese beasted out on song after song, eliciting an early sun-drenched crowd to rock out along accordingly. Maserati ended its blistering 3 p.m. slot with Albanese slamming one of his sticks against the kit, causing it to bounce it into the crowd, a sign that let everyone in attendance know what else would be coming on day one. – John Flannagan
Wine Lips
As we turned our necks to Criminal – no walking necessary given its new placement – we knew the saved energy was going to be worth it as we proceeded to pour our energy into one of my favorite up-and-coming bands today. Wine Lips had an 8-minute monitor problem before they could start (a minor issue as they handled it like consummate professionals, even when some in attendance weren’t quite as patient). Once the Canadian four-piece was given the OK, though, it proceeded to annihilate every song, which included all the best tracks off their past three efforts. We say this all the time, but Wine Lips are fun, and if they can get a 3:45 p.m. crowd this amped, they are obviously the real deal. Tracks such as “Fried IV,” “Choke” and “Get Your Money” had everyone soaking up every minute of this set. – JF
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
After already witnessing incredible sets from POND, Wine Lips and Maserati, the onslaught continued with Australia’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. With a riff-heavy, four-guitar sound and a strange name, the Diarrhea Planet comparisons are inescapable, but the Perth-based group has a more tuneful approach. Leader Jack McEwan’s vocals spun from a growl to a high shimmer, while the band slowed down to a disco-y pulse at times but mostly kept the guitars churning and the mosh pit moving, as a steady stream of crowd surfers rode towards the stage. Absolutely unrelenting and pummeling, this wasn’t a show so much as a statement of purpose. PPC is coming for America, and they are gonna be huge. – Bill Foster
All Them Witches
Once a fixture at Knoxville bars like Scruffy City Hall and Preservation Pub, this Nashville-based band has long since graduated to larger venues. However, although the four-piece was awarded sub-headliner status on the first night of Shaky Knees 2024, not all was peachy keen in the All Them Witches camp entering the week. Drummer and founding member Robby Staebler posted on social media in late April that he had exited the group, forcing a change at the position ahead of this appearance. His fill-in, Christian Powers, proved to be a more-than-adept replacement, though, and the show went off without a hitch – marking yet another quality performance in a remarkable run in the southwestern quadrant of the festival grounds that hosted the Criminal Records and Ponce de Leon stages.
Much like when it used “War Pigs” as an intro to “Saturnine & Iron Jaw” at ‘Spooky’ Knees in the fall of 2021, the band came out Friday evening on Ponce to the Butthole Surfers’ “Pepper,” utilizing the recorded track as a natural springboard into a gripping rendition of “See You Next Fall,” the churning kiss-off classic grinding its way to a satisfying conclusion. “Enemy of My Enemy” was a clear highlight, as was “Diamond,” which billowed out from a bluesy crawl into a blustery, effects-laden romp that accentuated Powers’ fierce pounding of the skins. This moody psychedelia featured frequent forays into improvisational/jammy territory, but the group never lost sight of its end goal and delivered a tight, focused and utterly enjoyable set. – Matt Rankin
Switchfoot
I’ll admit it: I did not have “former Christian rock and surf band with a couple of hits in the ’90s delivers one of the shows of the day” on my Shaky Knees bingo card, but damned if Switchfoot didn’t show up and just absolutely crush it on the Criminal Records Stage. It’s just a lot of fun to watch a well-honed touring band that has been at it for a couple decades just do their thing, and that’s what you got here. Lead singer Jon Foreman climbed and jumped off everything in sight, mugged with his bass-playing brother and launched himself into the crowd while the band played songs like “Meant to Live” and “Oh! Gravity” and a blazing cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” Sometimes it’s OK for music to be nothing more than a rocking good time. Switchfoot get that and delivered in spades. – BF
Interpol
Stimulating the senses at sunset with the indelible, jagged opening riff to “C’mere” from 2004’s “Antics” to kick off the proceedings in a style befitting of its members’ spiffy-as-always attire and never slowing down for the duration of its hour onstage, Interpol put on what probably was the best show I’ve ever seen performed by a legacy act – although it pains my middle-aged heart to admit that’s what the band is now. Granted, I hadn’t to this point had the opportunity to catch the New Yorkers live, and I had been looking forward to this set since the lineup was first announced. Still, this stellar set exceeded my lofty expectations.
The early songs (“Narc,” “Obstacle 1,” “Evil”) were well-received, of course, but the best and most surprising aspect of the show, however, was how well the tracks culled from the group’s spotty modern catalog held up to and complemented those taken from its first two albums. Stripped of their produced sheen, “My Desire” and “All the Rage Back Home” exuded a swagger not heard on record, and “The Rover” positively ripped. While the young folks nodded along in respectful approval, all the old farts like me bopped along with glee as “PDA” built to a crescendo before culminating in that beautiful extended outro that I’m geriatric enough to remember was cut from the radio edit. Although a wave of festivalgoers came flooding in to claim primo spots for Noah Kahan following Interpol, it was almost my bedtime, so I bid Peachtree adieu for the day. – MR
