Festival could do no wrong on Sunday
Shaky Knees coverage brought to you by John Flannagan, Bill Foster, Rusty Odom and Matt Rankin
I’ve been to hundreds of festivals at this point.
When I went to my first one – Bonnaroo in 2004 – it just seemed like the thing to do. A lot of my friends had gone in the previous years, and I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun. By the end of the first night, my life had changed forever.
These things are most important for the effect they have on a person’s personal narrative. Festivals bring out the best in people for the most part. Most everyone is there for a unified goal. And they’re not easy to do. The days are long and typically very hot. The hours are grueling, and the stages are usually not very close to one another. So when it gets to a festival’s final day, there’s a bit of tired magic in the air. Everyone tackles the journey together, and it shows. People are comfortable to be themselves at festivals, as well, and that’s also a big part of what makes them special.
Witnessing that lack of self-consciousness is just as refreshing as seeing your favorite band, if you stop and think about it.
When you put all these things together, it creates the heartiest of stews, and by the time it’s over, you feel a little more whole. You’re ready to take on the world when you get home.
This Shaky Knees reminded me of why I still go to music festivals. I’ve seen most of the bands on most of the posters these days, but this iteration provided two handfuls of firsts and another several fantastic bands I had caught only once before.
It checked other boxes I’ve been craving lately, too. No matter the event or the city in which it is hosted, it’s always about the people in the crowd next to you.
During the evacuation on Saturday, our porch became a safe haven for friends and strangers alike. As rain poured onto 10th Street just outside the festival gates, every eave on the block became flooded with humans. While we were careful not to let anyone who we didn’t know inside, the downpour didn’t relent for a solid half-hour, and those huddled strangers started to become friends. After holding it for as long as they could, a couple of those folks, literally with hat in hand, politely requested to use the bathroom. We had vetted the crowd pretty well by this point, so we felt OK about granting a few of these requests.
When the rain finally stopped, one of our new pals started to head down the stairs to the street. But before he could make it all the way down, I involuntarily urged him to stop. “Before anyone leaves, let’s get a picture,” was the sentence that came out of me.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the idea, and I’m glad we captured the moment.
After the crowd dispersed, we gathered our stuff from the porch and went inside to clean up. What we found renewed my faith in humanity and reminded me of the power of the modern-day music festival.
The storm came quickly, and in the midst of the ruckus, I left my wallet just outside on the porch. It was left beside an oversized planter in the rain, but after the rush and everyone was gone, it had been placed in the dryness just a few feet underneath the awning.
Inside the house, there was a wad of cash on the countertop that our photographer Bill Foster had left there all weekend. After everyone left, not only was the cash still there, but the stack was larger than it was before.
It will be great to look back at that photo to remember the moment, but it’s even better knowing that a few of those kind souls left us some cash with no request of recognition.
Shaky Knees featured a loaded schedule throughout the weekend. Terrible conflicts were aplenty and, ultimately, that’s a good thing. The crowds were as big as any I’ve seen at a festival in the past decade other than maybe a trip to the Polo Fields in Indio, California, for Coachella a few years back. With that many people at the same park with only two stages going at the same time, you need quality acts at the same time to keep the crowds manageable.
By the end of the weekend, I had forgotten about the worst conflict of them all, Pavement vs. The Prodigy, in part because neither happened due to the rain, but mainly because of the festival’s final day of programming.
In all of my years attending festivals, Sunday of Shaky Knees 2026 owned one of the finest musical runs I’ve ever experienced.
Up-and-comers like Big Special and Fcukers set the stage for the future while indie juggernauts OK Go and Modest Mouse created a bit of nostalgia for older millennials and young Gen Xers. That same demo was then treated with legendary hip-hop sets from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Wu-Tang Clan. Both groups have a ton of members, and their shows can be unpredictable. Both were absolutely brilliant, however, and everyone from the groups showed up. This event doesn’t mean something just to the fans; at this point, it has become a staple of the festival landscape to the bands on the bill, as well.
And if you wanted to dance, well, you were in luck, neighbors. It started with Fcukers on the festival’s smallest stage in the afternoon, and it only got looser with Santigold’s blazing hot set (both onstage and off). Then LCD Soundsystem delivered a truly transcendent set – the best I’ve ever seen from them – and Gorillaz just blew the rest of it into the stratosphere. If you get a chance to see any Damon Albarn project, you should take advantage of the opportunity but if it’s Gorillaz, you’ve gotta do it. By the Time Del tha Funk Homosapian surprised the crowd with his guest appearance on “Clint Eastwood,” the mission had been completed.
It doesn’t get much better than this, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for the South’s biggest and best rock and rap festival. Below are a few of our favorites from the final day. – Rusty Odom
Violet Grohl
As Dave Grohl’s daughter, there is no doubt that she has been presented with opportunities sooner than otherwise might be the case. As such, I’ll admit that I was a little prejudiced against liking her set going into it. For the first couple songs, the best I could come up with as an adjective was “inoffensive.” However, as the show went on and Grohl warmed up, I began to warm up to her in turn. She is touring behind her first album “Be Sweet to Me,” released just a few months ago. The show became louder and more rocking as it progressed, and she performed most of the debut album along with an excellent Squirrel Bait cover. Her songwriting is interesting and diverse. Grohl is only 20 years old and needs some seasoning, but I’ll be interested to watch what she does next. – Bill Foster
Jet
For me, Jet could not have taken the stage at a better time. Sometimes, the constant barrage of coolness gets overwhelming, and it’s nice just to sit in the shade and drink a beer and watch some damn rock ‘n’ roll. Jet is known in America as a one-hit wonder, but they have had a longer career in Australia and are now on their second reunion – with most of the original band, to boot. Their songs are deserving of a little more notice, as they write capable, catchy rock music. They played a great AC/DC cover as a lead-in to the inevitable “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.” Their set was nothing earth-shaking, but it was a fun way to spend a bit of an afternoon. – BF
Santigold
Fearless, confident and impossible to pin down, Santigold remains one of pop’s great genre-blending outliers, an artist who sounded ahead of the curve when she emerged in the late aughts and who still carries that same spark nearly two decades later. Her Shaky Knees set played like a greatest-hits celebration, drawing heavily from her self-titled debut and “Master of My Make-Believe,” playing with just enough urgency to make the afternoon feel like a victory lap that had not lost its edge.
She opened with a cover of Major Lazer’s “Hold the Line” before tearing into “L.E.S. Artistes,” “GO!,” “Lights Out,” “Say Aha” and “Unstoppable,” barely giving the crowd time to catch its breath. Under a scorching sun at the mostly exposed Peachtree Stage, Santigold helped kick off a Sunday run of sets that turned the festival grounds into a late-afternoon dancehall gathering. A brief stop for a barricade safety issue slowed the momentum only slightly, and once order was restored, she closed with the hectic punch of “Big Mouth,” sending the crowd away sweaty but with euphoric smiles plastered on their faces and reminding everyone that her weird, wired brilliance still hits with force. – John Flannagan
Wu-Tang Clan
As Flanny mentioned above, Sunday’s run of shows was one of the best any of the BLANK crew had ever experienced at any festival. No matter which adventure you wished to embark upon, all paths led to an exemplary performance. While the prospect of the aforementioned electronic upstarts wilding out concurrently at Criminal Records was alluring, I had never experienced Wu-Tang live, for better or for worse, so seeing all the surviving members and ancillary characters reunite at one of the last stops on the collective’s farewell tour was a no-brainer.
Although I’ve heard horror stories about some less than stellar outings from the rap icons in the past, perhaps the finality of this being the last go-round generated the masterful and mindful display an engaged Peachtree crowd witnessed on this blazing afternoon. “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” was a seminal album for a generation of young hip-hop aficionados, me included; consequently, I was positively giddy that the entire first half of this 16-song setlist constituted tracks from that release. The fact that they weren’t presented in the same order mattered not; that they were rendered so intensely and reverently by their creators – replete with a full band and a brass section in tow – resonated hugely.
The late, great ODB got his flowers immediately after, as his progeny Young Dirty Bastard let fly the verses on his pops’ solo joints “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and “Got Your Money” in quick succession. Already wowing with an accelerated rendition of his eponymous song, Method Man delivered a devastating “I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By” that was followed by a sublime version of Raekwon’s “Ice Cream.” Atlanta’s own Havoc then was brought onstage for a cover of Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones (Part II),” which transitioned to the funky favorite “Gravel Pit” and an apropos “Reunited.” “Triumph” was the epic set closer, the low end of which reverberated menacingly throughout the southeastern portion of the grounds as I hoofed it around the paved walking path to secure a sweet spot overlooking Piedmont for LCD Soundsystem. – Matt Rankin
Fcukers
There are not many acts worth missing Wu-Tang Clan for, but New York duo Fcukers made a convincing case after dropping debut full-length “O” in March. Confirmation was received early when, to our surprise, we arrived at Criminal Records to find that it was packed well before the set began, with the crowd continuing to spill down the hill toward Ponce as the last day of Shaky Knees slipped into twilight.
The duo proceeded to turn the field into a club-like dancefloor, especially when they pounded out “L.U.C.K.Y” early in the set. Frontwoman Shanny Wise moved with a cool, unhurried swagger, letting the grooves do most of the heavy lifting, while producer and DJ Jackson Walker Lewis gave the set its spark, jumping from speakers and pushing the crowd at just the right moments as kids crowdsurfed like it was 1994. Backed by a live drummer and scratch DJ, Fcukers stretched their sound – consisting of ’90s and early 2000s house, trip-hop haze and indie-rock bite – into one of the day’s most magnetic surprises.
For a group whose rise has been fast but focused, this set felt less like a discovery than a confirmation: Fcukers have found their lane, and at Shaky Knees, they made it feel wide open. – JF
LCD Soundsystem
Underrated single “Tonite” kicked off this 10-song dance party, arguably (and definitively in my estimation) the best set of the whole weekend. Comprising both deep cuts and massive hits, James Murphy and company transcended their subheadlining slot with an understated yet grandstanding performance for the ages before the largest audience I’ve ever seen. (I took a photo from my initial vantage point above Piedmont; the jam-packed crowd wrapped all the way around the dogleg at the back of the secondary stage and extended all the way to the barrier in front of the main stage’s photo pit.)
“Tribulations” provided a welcome throwback before the rewarding triplicate of “I Can Change,” “Time to Get Away” and “Pow Pow” got everyone’s juices flowing. By the time the woozy pulsations of “Someone Great” ceded to the immaculate strains of “Home,” I was feeling loose enough to abandon my lofty perch and descend into the madness below, claustrophobia be damned. Miraculously enough, I spotted the unmistakable poofy man bun of BLANK publisher Rusty Odom as I bounded down the hill, and he, Flanny and I sidled our way into the throng.
If “North American Scum” was a blast, then “Dance Yrself Clean” was an absolute explosion. Being sandwiched amongst thousands of beautiful souls and counting down the thrilling seconds before pogoing to the song’s eventual, momentous drop is an experience I will not soon forget. (It’s trite to say that you had to be there to understand, but it’s kind of true in this scenario.) Had the audio not cut out right before the climax of closer “All My Friends,” I might be tempted to say that this may be my favorite show of all time, but the knowing masses full-throatedly filling in for Murphy’s muted vocals as the band chugged on in relative silence was as satisfying as such an awkward conclusion could have been. Had the festival ended here, Shaky Knees 2026 would have been a roaring success. – MR
