As quickly as the first day of the 2018 Shaky Beats Festival wrapped up and the late-night shows ended, Saturday begun, starting with a chill set by Kidwaste on the main stage, layering instruments over one another and a killer upbeat set by DJ Vandal Rose on the Piedmont stage. One of the acts that really caught our attention early in the day on Saturday was Phantoms and their supremely catchy song, “Just a Feeling.” Their entire set definitely had the crowd grooving.
Phantoms
A little later on the main stage, Ookay threw up a fun set of 80s influences tunes, both visually and stylistically with killer beats, touches of R&B, neon clothes and some keytar soloing from his upcoming release, Wow! Cool Album!
Ookay Live
Over on the Piedmont stage one of the highlights of the day was an aggressive and confident set by K?D, a DJ and producer originally from Miami. Pushing out some unique and bass-heavy beats he really had the folks at the front of the stage going crazy and the audience created a huge dust cloud that really added to the spectacle.
K?D
Bonnie x Clyde put on one of the most fun sets we saw at Shaky Beats this year. Daniel Litman and Paige Lopynski started back in 2015 with a fun mix of electro-pop and house music and have been climbing in popularity ever sense. Lopynski frequently left the DJ booth to hype the crowd and even gave the front row some roses during their excellent set.
Bonnie X Clyde
San Holo, perhaps best known for his remix of Dr. Dre‘s, “The Next Episode” pulled out the guitar a few times to take the front of the stage for his beat heavy set of songs, providing one of the most diverse sets of the day.
San Holo
A few different people told us not to miss Excision and we took them at their word and caught his incredible set. He brought the beats and he brought them hard, sounding like an out of control video game with incredible graphics, throbbing bass and some insane audio effects. The crowd reacted in kind with multiple mosh pits opening up on both sides of the stage.
Excision
Not to be outdone, Atlanta’s own rapper, Playboi Carti brought it just as hard over on the Piedmont Stage, screaming, “Open it up! Let’s get a pit started now!” Last Friday saw the official release of his debut record, Die Lit on Interscope Records and it seemed as if half the crowd already new most of the songs. Carti flew back and forth across the stage with equal parts aggression and pure adrenalin barely touching the ground the entire set.
Playboi Carti
On the main stage, Zedd closed out Saturday night with a huge production, killer pop beats with enough drops and melodies to keep everyone dancing non-stop the entire set, delivering an uplifting set of tunes, with plenty of pyro and an insane light show.
Zedd
Written by and all photos by John McNicholas. Check out more of John’s photos from Shaky Beats Day 2:
