By John Flannagan, Rusty Odom and Matt Rankin
Shaky Knees returned to its familiar spring time slot after last being held in October 2021 due to pandemic weirdness. This year’s edition of the festival felt like a family reunion of sorts, highlighted by the father-son duo of Billie Joe (Green Day) and Jakob (Ultra Q) Armstrong playing with their respective bands, along with venerable Knoxville outlets and festival staples like Status Serigraph, Loch & Key and BLANK Newspaper being on site to document the action in one way or another.
It felt really good being back at Central Park in Atlanta with all of these festival veterans and creative souls, with the family reunion vibe driven home during Green Day’s spectacular headlining set Friday night in which the elder Armstrong brought Jakob onstage to help perform the classic song “She.” It was an excellent first day, and we’ve recapped some of our favorite and/or most noteworthy performances below. – John Flannagan
flipturn
A few thousand attendees enjoyed all the perks that came with getting to a festival early on the opening day of Shaky Knees 2022. There’s little-to-no waiting in line to get in, no lines for bathrooms or concessions and, of course, there’s the chance to discover bands on the rise.
When the lineup was released, we immediately made some adjustments to our schedules so that we could arrive on Thursday. Last year, we missed Frankie and the Witch Fingers in the same slot flipturn occupied this year due to traffic, and we weren’t going to take that chance again this year. It was the correct move.
The crowd was live for the first Piedmont performance of the weekend. After a few new ones, the five-piece from Fernandina Beach, Florida, saw fans singing along and jumping around at 1:30 in the afternoon when they broke into the first few chords of “Chicago.”
It wasn’t the first trip to Shaky Knees for at least one member of the band, Tristan Duncan, who explained how cool it was to be onstage after attending as a fan five years ago. It’s always great to see bands go from one side of the railing to the other, and flipturn should get used to playing festivals based off of its debut SK performance. The band had just enough hitters from previous works to match the new material (which sounded excellent) in order to create a fun and vibrant festival set. They were worth getting here a day early and provided the perfect launch for what promises to be a great weekend of music – not only from bands we know, but the bands we’ll love in the future. In the meantime, keep an eye out for this one. – Rusty Odom
Acid Dad
Finding its stride early and maintaining that groove for its 45 minutes onstage at Criminal Records, this Brooklyn-based band started out mellow before transitioning to more psychedelic, rocking fare. Never quite building to a heady crescendo that the young group seems capable of achieving, the core trio and a touring bassist lacked physical energy but nevertheless produced a bluster, one that featured a much richer depth of sound than what their two albums thus far have evinced. This bodes well for the band’s future, but the large contingent gathered under the canopied enclave would seem to suggest that its present state is just as established. – Matt Rankin
Mannequin Pussy
The first truly high-energy set of the weekend was performed Friday afternoon by this Philly three-piece to a raucous crowd at Ponce de Leon. Frontwoman Missy Dabice has all the makings of a star in the making, and she commanded the stage and crowd throughout her band’s blistering, hour-long set. Dabice’s banter throughout the set was the stuff of legend, as she mentioned how, due to the name of the band, they rarely receive any kind of airplay and that people shouldn’t be uncomfortable with the “p-word,” instructing the entirety of the crowd to yell it in unison – a request which was obeyed by the Shaky faithful. The group rolled through their indie-punk catalog almost flawlessly, as only minor sound issues that plagued the first couple songs were promptly corrected, which helped the group deliver what was a top-three set for me on a stacked day one. – JF
Nilüfer Yanya
Walking a fine line between slacker melodicism and dynamic songcraft, the classically trained multi-instrumentalist and her nimble ensemble delivered an inspired late-afternoon set at Criminal Records. With light from the setting sun streaming through the wooded thicket, Yanya, who stuck to guitar duty for the duration of the show, and company churned out song after song of impeccable quality to equal the natural beauty of Renaissance Park.
Jazzi Bobbi on synths and sax was a revelation, her contributions adding complexity to Yanya’s breezy, rhythmic strumming. While the Londoner’s original compositions were intricate, thoughtfully layered and exquisite, it was a cover of fellow countrywoman PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me” that was a clear standout on Friday. Lovingly and stunningly rendered, it elicited a mighty roar from the previously hushed crowd. If this performance were any indication, Yanya is poised for breakout success. – MR
Spoon
Spoon’s twilight set proved to be a spectacular table-setter for what the rest of the evening had in store for us on the first day of Shaky Knees, as the Austin, Texas, group was the first of the night to smash through hit after hit, setting off a groovy dance party in the dusty field in front of Piedmont as a result.
The ever-charismatic Britt Daniels, fresh from recovering from vocal strain and decked out in a black cowboy hat, wasted little time getting the party started, with the group kicking things off with “Got Nuffin,” followed by “My Mathematical Mind,” “The Hardest Cut” (off their latest release “Lucifer on the Sofa”) and a cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation” for good measure.
Spoon were in the proverbial pocket all show, playing a splendid setlist coupled with moments of improvisational twist. The band wasn’t reinventing the wheel with its set, as you always know you will get a great show that is both loud and energetic, but this was next-level quality, the kind of which always keeps their fans coming back for more. – JF
Shannon and the Clams
The first day Academy Award for best drama at Shaky Knees goes to none other than Shannon and the Clams. After having initially posted to their Instagram page that, apparently due to illness, they were bowing out of both Thursday’s show at the Masquerade and the next day’s set at Shaky Knees, the band had deleted the post by Friday morning. While they did indeed cancel the pre-festival gig, they were able to find a replacement for guitarist Cody Blanchard in the form of longtime friend and Atlanta native Artie Mondello.
Thanking Modello for filling in several times throughout their set, in-between-song banter included keyboardist Will Sprott introducing the guitarist, who promptly hit a wrong note, causing the band to pause and leading Sprott to say, “That was your big moment, Artie – you blew it!” It elicited a wry smile from Mondello, whose crash course in learning the songs that would be played lasted all of five hours – no easy feat in front of thousands of people in your hometown.
Despite these challenges, Shannon and the Clams delivered an excellent set of their trademark swinging R&B inflected with hints of psych and doo-wop, proving that they are capable of both filling a specific musical niche with their vintage sound and entertaining the masses at a respected regional festival. – JF
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
When the lineup for this year’s Shaky Knees was first announced, I had to do a double take to process the inclusion of this Canadian collective. Aside from a memorable gig at Knoxville’s Big Ears in 2018, the anarchist band typically eschews festival appearances for tour dates that allow it to unfurl its moody compositions at its chosen pace. While these dark anthems contain enough rock elements to justify the group’s booking at this well-curated yet still fairly mainstream engagement, I had reservations about how they would be received. And I wondered how many people would turn up opposite formidable counterprogramming in the form of the lively, boisterous Dropkick Murphys.
I needn’t be worried, however, as a massive crowd had gathered beneath the Ponce tent well in advance of the penultimate block of the night. Modifying the current tour’s setlist to fit into the hour they were allotted, the nine (I think, as the pitch-black stage setup obfuscated how many members of the rotating crew actually were up there) players pummeled the audience with a streamlined, muscular beast of a set. Cinematic, soaring, ominous, punishing – these are but a few of the many adjectives that could be used to describe this momentous occasion. Although many in attendance – particularly the youngest of the bunch – may not have known it at the time, this was bucket-list material. – MR
Green Day
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a band have as many t-shirts represented in a crowd as I saw with Friday’s headliner. For some of the younger folks in the crowd, Green Day probably serves as somewhat of a legacy act. For others in their late 30s and older, its more of a nostalgic affair. Personally, I’m reminded of seeing Green Day at the Warped Tour in Chilhowee Park in 2000 and experiencing my first mosh pit. My buddy threw a metal trash can into the pit that day, my eyebrow got shoved right into a guy’s nose and neither of us made it out of that mess unscathed. I don’t remember much else from that show, but I’ll certainly remember this one. Billie Joe Armstrong’s non-stop call-and-response was as redundant as I can remember from any show I’ve attended, but I loved every second of it. That army in band shirts was joined by tens of thousands of others, and, collectively, we enjoyed the show from the first note.
Green Day’s catalog is incredibly deep, and they’ve remained relevant for over 30 years at this point. As a result, highlights from the show vary depending on whom you talk to. For me, I was partial to material from “Dookie” – and a brief cover of The Georgia Satellites’ “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.” But the coolest moments came when Armstrong was joined onstage by guests at three different times. First, he invited a youngster to sing the chorus of “Know Your Enemy.” Later, he was joined by his son Jakob on guitar for “She.” (Jakob’s band Ultra Q had performed earlier in the day.)
The very best moment of the show, though, came when he brought a young man onstage to borrow one of the band’s guitars for a cover of Operation Ivy’s “Knowledge.” After the guest crushed the three-chord affair, he jumped off a riser to finish the song. The crowd went wild, of course, and Armstrong got on the mic. “By the way, you can keep the guitar,” he said. The band was already a few beats into “Basket Case” by the time the kid caught his breath, and as he walked offstage with his new prize, it was pure bliss for everyone there. It was then that I realized that this set was going so much better than I thought it would.
Armstrong really reinvigorated my respect for him when he went on tour with The Replacements a few years ago, and he was a showman through and through with Green Day on this night. The band as a whole hasn’t lost a single thing and are, in fact, as well-tuned as any I saw on day one, outside of Biffy Clyro. – RO
