Bolts, Skulls, and Atlanta. The three staples of Shaky Knees Festival were back for its tenth anniversary on Friday. As usual, the festival returned to Atlanta’s Central Park and had an awesome lineup to fill its four stages. At all times at Shaky Knees, two sets are going on at the same time, excluding the headliner, and there is almost guaranteed going to be an act you love or will discover at the festival. Day one in 2023 was no different. Headlined by The Killers, the day was filled out with other must-see acts like Peaches, Grouplove, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Cypress Hill playing their triple platinum album ‘Black Sunday.’
Friday’s lineup had me wishing that I could be in two places at once at times, but I couldn’t and missed some of the stacked sets across the park. Here are the sets that I made it to and some of the highlights as I experienced them.
Lovejoy
In December, Road Trip Playlists writer Drew Rupard had the opportunity to attend Lovejoy’s second US show at New York City’s Mercury Lounge. In the review, she wrote, “The sheer happiness and excitement of the concert touched me.” I imagined that joy would translate to the festival stage, and that thought was confirmed from the moment I parked my rental car and saw a huddle of friends dressed in Lovejoy merch, and I continued to spot supporters for the band and its frontman Wilbur Soot throughout the day. Not even the rain could hold back fans. As I got to the Peachtree stage ahead of their set, you could feel the buzz, and taking a look behind me, I found myself fully drowning in a sea of fans flooding the stage. For a band with a still relatively small catalog of music, they have an intense and loyal fanbase. Beginning as an internet star, Soot transformed his streaming success to comedic music videos to now a rock band that is making waves and booking festival gigs.
The band kicked off their set with their most popular song, ‘One Day,’ as phones immediately littered the view of the stage and fans sang every word with the band. You have to think that the years Soot has spent streaming has helped him be an expert at knowing what fans want, and that showed as they immediately transitioned into ‘Taunt’ and the joy from the crowd was palpable. I began to look around to find people in the audience who may be observing Lovejoy for the first time, unaware of the internet backstory of the band and what they thought of the band and was met with nodding heads as the band played and found them to be the perfect festival act. They’ll fill the field, and their diehard fans create an awesome atmosphere that you want to be a part of.
Lovejoy jetted off on their first tour this year after forming during the pandemic, but you wouldn’t guess that they are new to the performing aspect of things. There are parts of what the band brings sonically that could be sharpened, but when you see their fanbase screaming every word, it does help make some flaws less noticeable. However, the biggest note that I took from their performance is that this ‘Lovejoy’ project is no gimmick from a group parlaying internet success and popularity into an attempt at music, they are going for it and have all of the makings of adding being rockers to an already long list of multi-hyphenate skills of frontman Wilbur Soot. Seeing them at Shaky Knees felt like a launching pad of legitimacy for a band that will soon be a household name.
Cautious Clay
What can’t Cautious Clay do? That was the lingering question after his set at Shaky Knees. It was the first time that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a set live, and again Cautious Clay, aka Joshua Karpeh, surprised me with everything that he could do musically. Besides impressing with his vocals, Karpeh played the flute and saxophone showing the dynamic talent he displays through his music. It was my first time seeing Cautious Clay aside from an appearance on ‘Current Mood,’ the wildly popular Instagram Live series that he did with John Mayer.
Surf Curse
Surf Curse has been an impressive band for nearly ten years, but they’re recently riding a wave of momentum after the surprise TikTok success of “Freaks,” which earned over 500M worldwide streams and RIAA platinum certification more than eight years after its original release. The band made their way to Atlanta for Shaky Knees to celebrate their impressive recently released album ‘Magic Hour,’ which was recorded at New York’s iconic Electric Lady Studios. The album is a bit of the antithesis of their trending song, but Friday at Central Park was the perfect showcase for their work beyond that of ‘Freaks.’ Their live set was certainly unorthodox. For one, it’s not often you have a drummer at center stage as the lead vocalist. It’s even less often that you see it done well, but frontman Nick Rattigan executes that role extremely well. Another way they are unorthodox is how truly improvised the set felt. They had an hour set blocked at Shaky Knees, and with festival sets being shorter, it can sometimes feel that bands rush through to cram as many songs as they can into the hour. However, that was the opposite for Surf Curse, who took plenty of time between songs to interact with the crowd. Shouting out each section and especially the White Claw zone, the band created a memorable set with both their performance sonically and comedically. Rattigan told the crowd that despite sleeping like a baby he had a nightmare that he forgot the words of their song only to then forget words to their song.
Their set perfectly introduced festival fans to their wider catalog with strong and milky performances of songs like ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ ‘Sugar,’ and ‘Disco.’ Of course, the performance of ‘Freaks’ was also incredibly memorable. For a band that is known to incorporate movie titles into their music, they provided a near-cinematic experience with their live set as well.
Grouplove
Grouplove brought another favorite set from day one of Shaky Knees. It instantly transported me back to high school drives with my window down in my 1998 Buick LeSabre with my friends. The entire set was filled with nostalgic fun that made me smile from entering the stage to ‘Come Together’ by The Beatles to their final song of ‘Colours.’ Sandwiched in between was a performance of a new song ‘Cheese,’ ‘Beans on Pizza,’ and even a cover of Miley Cyrus’ ‘Party in the USA.’ One of the highlights of the festival was learning more about the band. For years I have listened to, sang, and enjoyed Grouplove, but never known much about the members of the band. As a music writer it feels embarrassing to admit, but did you know that lead vocalists Hannah Hooper and Christian Zucconi are married? It wasn’t until they had a sweet embrace on stage singing nearly face to face in perfect harmony and that knowledge added a special magic to their music. I just feel silly that it took a Shaky Knees performance for me to learn about it.
Killer Mike
After a last-minute cancellation from Manchester Orchestra due to illness, Atlanta luminary Killer Mike graced the Piedmont Stage. One half of the rap group Run The Jewels, Mike took the stage solo along with a gospel choir exclaiming to the crowd that he couldn’t promise a show but could practice a spiritual experience. Saying that he was going to take us to church, the next song that he played was the Bonecrusher cover of ‘Never Scared.’ While it didn’t feel like the church I was used to it was still special. In the first few songs, it was the most energy I had seen from the hometown crowd all day. It was all love for Killer Mike’s set. He shared positivity between each song. Except for when he publicly declared his hatred for Ronald Reagan before playing ‘Reagan.’ Atlanta-born Killer Mike described how he used to sell drugs just down the street from the festival stage from his job at Autozone as he dreamt of a music career before exploding with Run the Jewels. Mike also brought out frequent collaborater Big Boi playing Outkast covers and more. It is hard for a fill-in act to steal the show, but Killer Mike certainly did that for a hometown crowd on Friday night.
Greta Van Fleet
When I saw the festival lineup, one of the bands that I was most excited to see was Greta Van Fleet. I pictured the soaring vocals of Josh Kiszka and face-melting guitar riffs from his twin brother Jake Kiszka over the Peachtree Stage. While their talent certainly impressed, their performance didn’t. Their live set was good and bad at the same time. Watching, you could appreciate the talent but also feel that something was missing from a live set. The crowd was as still and calm as a lake that has turned to appear in that glass-like state that you dream of strapping on your waterskis to enjoy the perfect conditions. However, for a festival crowd, that kind of stagnate is strange to see, especially from one of the top-billing acts. The set was boring, and I was left wondering what it was about this band that makes them so popular? We all know the critique that they sound like a carbon copy of Led Zeppelin, and I’ve usually pushed back on that as criticism. However, watching their live set felt like it was a band that people thought they liked and were familiar with, but when it came down to seeing them, they proved to have nothing memorable about them. Their songs you can’t tell if they are a Zeppelin cover or their own. Their lyrics don’t stick. Jake did have a nearly 10-minute guitar solo where Josh exited the stage and came back, and that may be the only memorable thing that I have from their set, and when I reviewed my notes, there was nothing noteworthy to include here.
The Killers
After being disappointed by Greta Van Fleet, I was nervous to see The Killers. Both bands were two that I was incredibly excited to see live. I am from Utah, where frontman Brandon Flowers lives, and recently released a concept album on an area he lived in Utah titled ‘Pressure Machine.’ That fear was wiped away from the first note as they began with their iconic ‘Mr. Brightside.’ The song that was in the top charts consecutively for over five years, kicked off their set flawlessly, and the crowd ate up every moment of it. The next song was ‘Spaceman’, which also was met with raucous applause. As a live set, every note was electric. Brandon Flowers supporting a purple blazer and black-on-black button-up and slacks, knew exactly what the crowd wanted. For a festival, there may not be a better headliner. You don’t realize how many hits that they have until they are playing them live. Their set for Shaky Knees featured any song you wanted to hear, ‘Smile Like You Mean It,’ ‘Somebody Told Me,’ ‘Human,’ and ‘All These Things That I’ve Done.’ Confetti shot multiple times throughout the night. Their visuals carried their Vegas and Nevada desert theme, touting where they formed and got their start, and fans celebrated their journey from that time to now the perfect festival headliner. They finished their set with ‘While You Were Young.’ It was the perfect bookend that somehow got cut short with technical difficulties that cut out the sound from the band but the Peachtree crowd carried the band out, and drummer Ronnie Vannucci gave the crowd a drum solo that could be heard despite the sound being off. You’d think that that would sour the ending, but it almost made it more memorable and special.
Shaky Knees did it again on Day One with a wonderfully curated day.