SHAKY KNEES 2019: Sunday, Day 3 Highlights & Photos

After a Saturday night filled with showers, the rain departed, leaving only a handful of lagging clouds and anticipation for the third and final day of Shaky Knees Music Festival. Expectations ran high on Sunday as many great acts promised to entertain, and although many in attendance seemed happily worn from the two previous days, there was a noticeable uptick in attendance. Keep reading for our day three highlights.

Check out our SK19 Day 1 Highlights & Photos Here

Check out our SK19 Day 2 Highlights & Photos Here

The Blue Stones

Prior to the Shaky Knees lineup announcement, we had never heard of Canadian blues rock duo, The Blue Stones. But that’s just another thing that this festival excels at—introducing us to terrific artists on the rise.

As with many other acts who appeared under the Ponce tent during the weekend, The Blue Stones surpassed expectations and delivered a powerful early-afternoon set. The two-piece managed to generate so much sound and fury that those unable to see them might have assumed the music was coming from a full band.

Often compared to The Black Keys, Tarek Jarfar (lead vocals and guitar) and Justin Tessier (percussion and backing vocals) released their debut album Black Holes, late last year via Entertainment One Music. Check them out!

Slothrust

Slothrust somehow manages to combine the better parts of grunge and late 90s alternative/garage rock into a sound that is completely relevant in 2019. Currently touring in support of their album, The Pact, the Boston outfit delivered an inspired performance Sunday afternoon.

Dressed from head to toe in leopard-print, lead vocalist and guitarist Leah Wellbaum, whose unapologetic lyrics might be compared to those of Courtney Love in her prime, was nothing short of captivating. Welbaum, along with bandmates Kyle Bann and Will Gorin, began the show with the heavy garage-rocker “Surf Goth,” which got the crowd moving from the start. Midway through the set, Slothrust dropped into their version of Marcy Playground’s 1997 hit single, “Sex and Candy,” which seemed to hit the nostalgia nail on the head for many in attendance. The hour-long set itself was a rollercoaster ride, with Walbuam even joking at one point, “We like to offer a lot of different moods in rapid succession.”

Lucy Dacus

Nestled away beneath a canopy of trees near the back of the park, the Criminal Records stage offered festival-goers a respite from the springtime sun while hosting some of the best performances of the weekend. An early Sunday afternoon crowd gathered there to witness Lucy Dacus, a young singer-songwriter from Virginia whose sophomore album Historian was ranked the fourth best album of 2018 by NPR Music.

Dacus opened her set with “Addictions” from that same record, a song about being addicted to another person and the tendency we all often have to keep returning to what is familiar. It’s the honest relatability of her lyrics that seems to draw people into Dacus’s music, and her audience at Shaky Knees seemed captivated from the start.

Halfway through her set, Dacus broke into a beautiful rendition of “La Vie En Rose.” Time seemed to stop as every soul there just appreciated the moment as it was happening. Before performing “Pillar of Truth,” a tribute to her paternal grandmother, Dacus made a point to announce that her father was in the audience; and the following seven minutes was not unlike a traditional southern camp meeting, communal and spiritual to the core.

Dacus closed her set with the critically-acclaimed slow burner “Night Shift,” which according to the artist is the only breakup song she’s ever written. “You got a nine to five,” she sang, “so I’ll take the night shift / And I’ll never see you again if I can help it.” – “In five years I hope the songs feel like covers / Dedicated to new lovers.” It was the perfect ending.

Grouplove

Festival favorites Grouplove took to the mainstage mid-afternoon on Sunday, offering all in attendance a solid hour of carefree fun. As the cool afternoon breeze calmly blew across Central Park, the band delighted the crowd with favorites such as “Itchin’ on a Photograph” and “Tongue Tied.”

Throughout the set, an inflatable shark travelled about on the outstretched arms of festival-goers. One moment finding itself crowd surfing near the stage and then by the next song it was all the way in the back, snacking with the Roochute crowd on some Pizza Nova pies. It was a very surreal but welcomed experience, made even more hilarious by the fact that “Shark Attack” was played amidst the joviality.

The band also covered two songs— Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys, the latter of which, Hannah Hooper announced, was going into retirement after the performance. Finally, “Colours,” the classic anthem from the group’s 2011 debut Never Trust A Happy Song closed out the set, and as the cliché goes, a good time was had by all.

Deerhunter

Deerhunter was unfortunately one half of the biggest scheduling conflicts of the weekend, the other half being FOALS, who performed at the same time across the park. But if there was to be such a gut-wrenching conflict, then we’re at least happy to report that there were no disappointments.

Garnering a large crowd in front of the Criminal Records stage, the Atlanta natives explored their catalog while pulling mostly from 2010’s indie rock classic Halcyon Digest and this year’s brilliant Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? Honestly, it was weird… in the best of ways.

Frontman Bradford Cox, who was dressed all in white, radiated Wes Anderson with his demeanor but evoked something more akin to Animal Collective with his aural display, producing layers upon layers of sound that poured forth from the stage. It truly was brilliant.

The band navigated from new standards such as “Death in Midsummer” and “What Happens to People?” to celebrated favorites like “Helicopter” and “Desire Lines” before finally ending their time slot with “Agoraphobia” off 2008’s Microcastle. “Comfort me, comfort me,” Cox sang, “Cover me, cover me…” as we all looked on in quiet appreciation.

Tame Impala

There’s a reason the festival seemed even more crowded on Sunday, and if we had to venture a guess, Tame Impala was that reason. Tame Impala is the pet project of Australian psychedelic rock god Kevin Parker, whose vocals conjure memories of John Lennon and whose body of work over the last decade has been nothing short of any music fan’s wet dream. They are currently in full bloom; and we can think of no artist better suited to close out Shaky Knees 2019.

At around 8:30 Sunday evening, the Peachtree stage stirred with some vague home video footage and the elongated notes of a synthesizer as Tame Impala walked out onto the stage. There was a brief pause as Parker stood in front of the microphone, casually acknowledging the thousands of people gathered before him. He then uttered four simple words— “Alright. Here we go!” and the band launched into hit single, “Let It Happen.”

The next hour and a half was a glorious blur. Parker and his band hit all the right notes. There was the larger-than-life “Elephant,” where the bass line consumed us all and the laser-eyed visuals were nothing short of terrifying (but awesome). Then to fan-favorite “The Less I Know The Better,” to the now classic “Apocalypse Dreams,” which closed out the main set in spectacular fashion. The encore consisted of just two perfect songs: “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” in which confetti erupted for the second time during the set, and then the introspective closing track from 2015’s Currents, “New Person, Same Old Mistakes.”

And with that, the seventh iteration of Shaky Knees came to a bittersweet end. We’ll see you all next year! ~ Written by Kyler McCoy

Check out photos from Shaky Knees Music Festival 2019, Saturday, Day 2 by Mike Gerry: