Sunday, the third and final day of Shaky Knees 2026, opened with a passing of that generational torch.
Sunday Mourners, a band with a Black Crowes bloodline, led straight into Violet Grohl, an artist who can trace her lineage back through Foo Fighters and Nirvana.
Sunday Mourners are a post-punk outfit that are probably just a breakthrough track away. Vocalist and guitar player Quinn Robinson (son of Black Crowes Rich Robinson) has the look, and a sound that reminds me very much of Atlanta’s own Small Reactions. Can’t wait for that breakthrough album or track that pushes them later into the afternoon at festivals.
Grohl’s Shaky Knees slot, meanwhile, was billed as her first ever festival appearance as a solo artist. It was a nice set from the young artist surrounded by a talented backing band.
Cardinals were loud in a good way. And The Two Lips brought a breezy set under the trees.
Big Special, a band from the English Midlands, played what they called their first gig in Georgia and the hottest set of their lives. Heard that a lot this weekend. While the band mainly plays in the niche of spoken-word post-punk, singer Joe Hicklin showed off some impressive vocals on “BLACK DOG / WHITE HOUSE”, telling the audience at the end of the song “It’s mad for us coming out here and people knowing that song”. Two dudes, the drummer and vocalist, and that’s all they needed to rock Shaky Knees. It was a dance party at the Criminal Records stage for this one.
OK Go (of treadmill video fame) delivered a weekend lesson in professionalism. When sound problems hit within the first couple songs, the mic went dead. And so lead singer Damian Kulash grabbed an acoustic guitar, hopped off the stage, over the barricade and played into the crowd while the crew fixed it. I hate acoustic guitars as a rule of thumb, but this is a scenario where they pulled it off.
Jet, man. That one album still rips.
Santigold had one of the most underrated sets of the weekend. Shit was a groove.
Modest Mouse, like The Strokes, is another band with the reputation that you can’t be sure what you’re going to get until the day of the show. And, like The Strokes, they delivered in 2026. With the sun beating directly down on Isaac Brock, and security spraying water to cool the crowd, the band was on fire. Almost literally.
You know, I didn’t know I missed Bone Thugs-N-Harmony until I heard them this weekend. This was quintessential middle school music for me, and I was whisked in an instant back to the the eighth grade dance. They opened with “Thuggish Ruggish Bone,” paid tribute to Eazy-E, Biggie and 2Pac, and closed their hour with “Tha Crossroads.”
And I miss the carefree, pre-9/11 days that they and Wu-Tang Clan harken to. These guys are legends of a bygone era, set for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction later this year. Iconic.
Wu-Tang went head-to-head with Fcukers, who played essentially the same set they’d torn through at Terminal West twelve hours earlier. But this time, the crowd was different.
Where Saturday night’s late-show crowd was the coolest collection of Atlantans I’ve seen in one room in a while, Sunday afternoon’s crowd was very young. Kid after kid, crowd surfing, smoking cigs (don’t do that), slamming box waters and dancing like little maniacs. It was wholesome, it was lit again, and I can’t wait to hear what this band makes next.
I’ve seen a lot of people give the nod to LCD Soundsystem for set of the weekend. The New York icons put on exactly the kind of synthy, magical dance party you’d expect. And with the Piedmont and Peachtree Sunday closer crowds swelling into a giant, unbroken mass of people, it was hard to tell where LCD ended and Gorillaz even began.
Which is how you want your festivals to close, isn’t it? A sea of tired people, with wobbly legs, having given it all to the weekend. Coming together at the central altar to burn that last effigy together.
Sound problems during the LCD closer, “All My Friends,” seemed to kill at least one side of the PA, but the crowd didn’t care, and they just sang the song back to cover the gap. Distant lightning lit up the sky but the rain held off.
No sooner did LCD wrap than the crowd began to shift it weight back across the field towards Tenth Street. If felt like half of Atlanta was pouring in for Gorillaz.
Damon Albarn brought out most of the other half, too. His guests for the Sunday night finale included Kara Jackson on “The Hardest Thing,” 6lack on “The Pink Phantom,” DRAM on “Andromeda” and EarthGang for “Opium.”
EarthGang was the one that got me. I rooted hard for them to become that next breakout star from the Atlanta rap underground. I really thought they might be the next Outkast round about the time they put out “Liquor Sto’” a decade ago. It didn’t quite shake out that way, even as their running mate from that era, JID, became one of the bigger names in rap.
Seeing them onstage with Albarn was awesome all the same. This Englishman has cooler friends in Atlanta than I do, lol.
Which is exactly where I landed on Gorillaz. If you’d told me that the “woo-hoo” guy from Blur’s “Song 2” would just keep coming until he become one of those voice-of-a-generation artists, I wouldn’t have believed you. But just look at what Gorillaz has become.
It’s a total art project, with a mythology and visual storytelling that no other act alive can touch, and a message to push each other toward being a better species. The band has reached hallowed ground. I want to be friends with Damon Albarn too.
In the end, I was left with this: Shaky Knees is a well executed regional entertainment machine. Their social media team does sick work, fast. The lines for drinks and bathrooms were a breeze, despite it being a much bigger festival than the one we first attended. Yet for all of the big names and spectacle, the beauty of Piedmont Park, the ease of ticketing and re-entry, I somehow miss those old Central Park days.
Maybe it’s not old Shaky I miss, but rather, the days of those rootsy old bootleg festivals curated around a vibe, with more cash-only quesadillas and art, and less VIP. I don’t know whether any festival still feels that way. Maybe American festivals at large are a lot like the bands that play them: at their best on the way up.
Maybe the whole damn thing, this American life, is what’s on the way down.
Check out more photos below from Shaky Knees 2026 Day 3. All photos by Mike Gerry Full photo galleries to come.
