By Bill Foster and Matt Rankin
In taking stock of the last three days, it becomes abundantly clear why Shaky Knees is such a beloved festival. From the careful curation courtesy of founder Tim Sweetwood to the family-like (and family-friendly) atmosphere, quite a lot of care obviously goes into making this weekend a desired destination for regular festivalgoers.
Did everything go off without a hitch? No, the pandemic rendered a serious blow to the service industry, which has yet to fully recover. Seasoned professionals were at a premium, with inexperienced volunteers picking up the slack – and there probably wasn’t enough of them on hand, either. As we mentioned in our coverage on Friday, lines backed up throughout the weekend as a result, and supply chain issues made it that prices on items sold within the grounds were exorbitantly high. And after being forced to take a year off and then holding the event in a different season than usual, a general rustiness seemed to plague the proceedings.
But the many positives far outweighed the handful of negatives. Three of the four BLANK representatives – myself included – were attending Shaky for the first time, and all of us thoroughly enjoyed the experience and look forward to returning in the future. With very few exceptions, the music was wonderful. All of the headliners delivered (save for one Julian Casablancas – more on that later), and the undercard, which featured a perfect blend of established veterans, mid-level musicians and exciting up-and-comers, was exceptional. With not every artist returning to a normal touring schedule yet, cobbling together such an impressive lineup when COVID still is a lingering issue was in and of itself a monumental feat.
Alternating stages so that there are no gaps in programming is a stellar concept, but it risks creating a bevy of scheduling conflicts for folks. However, I personally faced only a couple of tough decisions in three full days, which is pretty remarkable. (IDLES versus Alice Cooper is the only one that immediately springs to mind.) Even with shorter-than-average set lengths, the small footprint allowed for easy mobility between stages in relatively short order, so it was possible to split time between two acts anyway. The pace of each day was expertly organized, too. There was a natural flow with regard to who performed, as well as where and when they did it. These kinds of things don’t just happen, either; they must be planned.
As we already eagerly await revisiting Atlanta, munching on a delicious Roti Roll and washing it down with an ice-cold Hazy Little Thing, here’s a recap of Sunday to extend the good vibes for another day and ease the pain of returning to the real world. – Matt Rankin
Bartees Strange
Hailing from the District of Columbia, this son of an opera singer and a career military man is most famous for recording a cover EP of songs by The National after having found himself as the only Black person at one of the band’s shows. Now, however, with four records to his name, Bartees is an experienced performer who was comfortable in front of the festival crowd. His music is indie folk with bits of rap and harder rock mixed in, and he was a great sunny Sunday afternoon starter. – Bill Foster
Joy Oladokun
Oladokun was a real find. Onstage, she is open, personable and funny. She speaks between every song, talking about wanting to be the Black Bruce Springsteen or how she left church because she felt hated for being lesbian, explaining that she didn’t understand it because “kissing pretty girls is really fun.” She has a husky alto voice that’s going to invite inevitable Tracy Chapman comparisons, but she ranges a lot farther, from four-part gospel harmonies to a raging cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” There is a lot of potential here. – BF
The Brook & The Bluff
This Birmingham-bred and Nashville-based band played on the Zelle on Piedmont Stage next. It’s literate, Beatles-influenced pop rock. Think Lord Huron with better harmonies. Really enjoyable. – BF
Michigander
This was another real find. It’s actually a synonym for Jason Singer from Kalamazoo. He was just starting to break through with bookings at all the major festivals when the pandemic struck. Now retooling, he has a four-piece band that rages enough to fire up a mosh pit but also handles subtleties well. The standout was a song called “Let Down,” which led to a huge singalong. – BF
The Aubreys
The Criminal Records Stage was the highlight of the entire festival for me, as every band I saw there was worth seeing. I loved The Aubreys, who seemed a little nervous at first but soon settled into a nice, crunchy groove. It was only later that I found out that the group is the new project by Finn Wolfhard of “Stranger Things” fame. It’s a retooling of Calpurnia (which has also played Shaky Knees in the past), which he began with his childhood friend Malcolm Craig. – BF
Orville Peck
Queer country as a genre still is in the nascent phase of its evolution, so it stands to reason that one of its most eminent artists is such a mysterious figure. Little, including his actual name, is known about Peck, who was masking up in public long before COVID necessitated it. However, focusing on sexual identity or personal narrative would diminish what should dominate discussion about the performer: the quality of his music, which is first-rate.
Peck’s new spin on old-time country is measured and austere, but there are quirky peccadillos that soup up his wind-swept, reverb-thick ballads, which become magnified in a live setting. For example, the rolling drum fills, whip effects and expert whistling on “Take You Back (The Iron Hoof Cattle Call)” combined to awesome effect Sunday afternoon, propelling the song to new heights and eliciting roars from the Peachtree audience. Effusive and charismatic, Peck made the most of his time on the main stage. – MR
O.A.R.
Festivals are meant to be enjoyable, so hating on a fun-loving group for wanting to spread positive energy seems like a waste of time … but I want no part of this revolution. If bro-friendly jams are your bag, then good on you. And there were plenty of shiny happy people skipping through the Piedmont field along to O.A.R.’s frail output on Sunday. For me, though, one version of hell would be something akin to what I experienced during this set: standing in a long line while hangry to purchase overpriced food while also sucking in plumes of dust and having to listen to some goofy dudes butcher a Johnny Cash standard. – MR
black midi
There couldn’t have been a more stark contrast all weekend than going from O.A.R. to seeing these noise rockers brutalize the audience at the Criminal Records Stage on Sunday evening. The band fuses sludge metal and free jazz into a combustible singularity, sprinkling in prog elements, weird time signatures and a stream-of-consciousness lyrical approach. They may sound like strange bedfellows, but all of these incongruent elements somehow correspond together effectively in the hands of these young Brits. On the surface, nothing about this experiment makes sense, but not only does it work, it’s utterly fantastic.
As an unexpectedly overcast sky began to darken, bright bursts of saxophone pierced the gloominess, offering a foil to the thunderous rhythm section and screaming guitars. Crowd surfing was a common occurrence, and only IDLES the previous night brought more intensity to a performance on this weekend. The group’s set nestled in nicely amongst the more mainstream fare that surrounded it, but it’s not hard to imagine black midi appearing at a future iteration of Big Ears, as well. – MR
Modest Mouse
Perhaps expecting too much from a band whose recorded output is so captivating, I’ve largely been burned by Modest Mouse at other festivals. This time was different, though. The recently released “The Golden Casket” is the group’s best album since “Good News for People Who Love Bad News,” and that newly regained creative spark illuminated Isaac Brock and company’s sundown performance on the main stage.
That the newer material was potent certainly helped matters, but the setlist also included stellar catalog cuts like “Dramamine,” “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” and “Doin’ the Cockroach.” At this point, crossover hits “Dashboard” and “Float On” are almost prerequisites for any festival engagement, but extended closer “Spitting Venom” hit all the right notes and filled pleasure centers as it morphed from a bitter kiss-off to a therapeutic blowout replete with violin and horn. – MR
Phoebe Bridgers
Several hundred of the talismanic singer-songwriter’s famously obsessive fans had camped out at the railing to Piedmont for eight hours – since the gates opened – in anticipation of this set. The wait proved worthwhile, as the generational talent delicately yet masterfully delivered an assortment of heartbreakers culled from her two studio albums to the adoring crowd, which knew (and sang along to) every word of every song.
Bridgers performed all but one track (“Halloween,” ironically enough) from her latest album, “Punisher.” “Georgia,” from her first, went over as well in Atlanta as one might expect. The only drawback was an issue that had plagued the secondary stage all weekend: a much too robust bass sound that had marred sets by several artists including Neal Francis and Mac DeMarco. The Hives solved the problem by turning everything else up to match it, but some of the subtleties of these songs were lost in the mix until the band rocked out on epic closer “I Know the End.”
While Bridgers’ music is likely better suited to a quiet concert hall rather than an outdoor festival, there was no denying the sway she held over the rapt audience, which was enjoying a moment. And based on the reception she garnered, she already might be too big for such a room. – MR
The Strokes
As far as we as a staff could tell, every performance throughout the weekend started and stopped pretty much right when it was supposed to. That impressive streak ended, however, when The Strokes came out to close the 2021 edition of Shaky Knees nearly 20 minutes late. To pull such a stunt as detached young hipsters playing a show of their own is one thing. But when a headlining act whose members are in their mid-40s does it at a festival, it just comes across as unprofessional and disrespectful to the audience.
Initially making matters worse was frontman Julian Casablancas, who many speculated was too inebriated to correctly operate his microphone’s effects pedal, lending the vocals on opening number “Hard to Explain” an annoying and distracting high pitch. From there, he went on to utter nonsensical phrases between songs, forget lyrics to several songs and taunt supporters of the hometown baseball team. Part of the band’s charm lies in its ragged, ramshackle attitude, but this seemed like something different and more serious in nature.
To his credit, Casablancas somewhat pulled things together as the set progressed, not quite matching his bandmates’ frenetic energy and tight musicianship, but at least providing emotional resonance with his singing and a charismatic influence with his mere presence.
Musically, there was a lot to like about The Strokes on Sunday night. The guitar interplay by Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi on back-to-back tracks “You Only Live Once” and “Heart in a Cage” was technically proficient but also rousing, as was the seedy strut of “New York City Cops,” which sounded closer to the electric first version captured on “Lost Treasures” than the one on the debut. “Juicebox” and “Reptilia” were far better than the recorded versions, and hearing “Someday” and “Automatic Stop,” my favorite tracks from the first and second albums, respectively, was a blast from the past.
Speaking of which, it had been almost 18 years – nearly half my life – since I last saw the band live. At that show in Charlotte, Casablancas exhibited many of the same erratic behaviors that he did in Atlanta. Addiction is a beast, and if he indeed is struggling again, I sincerely hope he seeks out the help he needs, whatever form that may take. That’s a somber note on which to conclude our Shaky Knees coverage, but his condition was hard to overlook, and discussion about it continues to dominate online threads. – MR
