Sweetwater 420 Fest has announced the lineup for their 21st Spring festival to be held Friday, April 17th and Saturday, April 18th. No 420 on 4/20 this year! We’ll survive.
Atlanta has shown a lot of love for Umphrey’s McGee and Thievery Corporation – over the years and as recently as December. Sweetwater 420 Fest has always provided a great vibe, ample beer choices, psychedelic splashes of color and a well-curated set of performers. Brighton’s The Heavy Heavy is just one of which to take note with a 70’s retro reverb sound, great lead guitar lines and Georgia Fuller and William Turner’s vocals.
Best of all, PRICING. $47/Day up to just $227 for 2 Day VIP, including fees.
The Fest will be relocated from Pullman Yards to Shirley Clarke Jackson Park on Atlanta’s west side. The park is generous in size, and this will be their inaugural hosting for a major event.
As the city’s largest greenspace, the location should provide a broader and more accessible audience viewing area than the closeted feel at Pullman Yards.
Attendees should note that there will be no public parking available at the park. See the Fest’s FAQ for MARTA and rideshare options.
This September, Shaky Knees 2026 returns to Piedmont Park with one of its most stylistically expansive lineups in recent memory. Long known for anchoring Atlanta’s alternative calendar, the festival continues to evolve while staying rooted in guitar driven music, pairing legacy acts with modern boundary pushers across punk, indie rock, hip hop, electronic, emo, and progressive rock.
Topping the bill are three arena scale acts with distinct identities:
The Strokes – garage rock revival standard bearers whose early 2000s cool still resonates across generations.
Twenty One Pilots – alternative pop maximalists blending rock, hip hop, and electronic production into festival sized spectacle.
Gorillaz – Damon Albarn’s genre dissolving project, merging alternative rock, hip hop, electronic, and global pop textures.
It is a trio that reflects Shaky Knees’ widening lens: alternative at its core, but not confined to one sonic lane.
The undercard is where the 2026 lineup reveals its true dimensionality.
Hardcore momentum comes from Turnstile, whose sound began in hardcore punk but now stretches into melodic hardcore and alternative rock atmospherics. Ireland’s Fontaines D.C. carry the modern post punk revival forward with stark lyricism and driving minimalism, while New York’s Geese inject wiry art rock unpredictability into the mix.
For indie traditionalists, Pavement represent foundational 90s slacker indie rock, their influence echoing throughout much of the weekend’s guitar forward acts. Jimmy Eat World, often categorized as emo and alternative rock with pop punk crossover appeal, bring melodic catharsis that bridges Warped Tour nostalgia and radio ready hooks.
The rhythmic and electronic spectrum is equally robust. Wu-Tang Clan embody classic East Coast hip hop, while Blood Orange blends alternative R&B, indie pop, and electronic production into sleek, artful grooves. LCD Soundsystem remain synonymous with dance punk and electronic rock, their sets balancing live band energy with club pulse dynamics.
On the melodic indie pop side, Peach Pit deliver jangly indie pop with surf rock undertones, while Japanese Breakfast layers indie pop and indie rock with dream pop ambience. Wolf Alice traverse alternative rock, grunge textures, and occasional dream pop shimmer.
Emo and pop punk energy finds representation in Hot Mulligan, whose sound more precisely lands between emo, pop punk, and post hardcore. Meanwhile, Santigold continues to defy easy categorization, fusing electronic, new wave, alternative pop, and dancehall influenced rhythms into a distinctly genre blending live show.
For progressive minded attendees, Coheed and Cambria bring intricate progressive rock structures layered with alternative and post hardcore roots, offering one of the weekend’s most technically ambitious performances.
We knew Piedmont Park would offer the opportunity for bigger and better, and here it is, a reason for music loves across the region to get excited!
For all things Shaky Knees, check out the festival site! Tickets on sale now!
Briscoe is the Austin-based project of Truett Heintzelman and Philip Lupton. Briscoe was started by Philip his senior year of high school as an outlet for his original music. Once together at The University of Texas, Truett officially joined the band and the red-headed duo became official. Together the pair has released an EP, “Briscoe EP”.
Briscoe draws musical influence from what many consider the golden years of music, the late 1960s to mid 1970s. Artists such as Neil Young, James Taylor, The Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Carole King, and Paul Simon have influenced the pair musically and lyrically. With a variety of instrumentation, Briscoe’s live shows and studio recordings seem to stray in and out of genres, but consistently showcase meaningful songwriting and unique melodies.
As Paste sums it up, “Ratboys are back, baby.” The beloved Chicago band will release their new album, Singin’ to an Empty Chair, on February 6 via New West Records. Despite its title, the album isn’t defined by what’s missing. Rather, it’s the beginning of an important dialogue with a close loved one vocalist/guitarist Julia Steiner finds herself estranged from. The music on the band’s sixth studio album fills the space that person left behind with 11 songs showcasing Ratboys’ twangy effervescence. They’re as confident as they’ve ever been and more emotionally interrogative than ever before. Pitchfork writes, “Not only do Chicago stalwarts Ratboys continue to fine-tune their approach to the genre with each record, they also sound increasingly inspired … Ratboys may be humble Midwesterners with good intentions, but don’t underestimate how calloused their fists are or their willingness to fight for a lasting earworm.” Vulture deems the album “irresistible guitar-driven rock” and Variety calls the band “experts in making the simplest rock songs sound vast and atmospheric.”
DETHKLOK celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2026, marking two decades since Metalocalypse premiered on Adult Swim. As one of the most essential musical multimedia acts ever, DETHKLOK is both an animated phenomenon and a live metal juggernaut, combining intense musicianship with breakneck cinematic theatricality.
Bringing the beloved larger-than-life characters of DETHKLOK to life once again will be Metalocalypse mastermind Brendon Small on guitar and vocals, legendary extreme metal drummer Gene Hoglan (Death, Dark Angel, Testament), bassist Pete Griffin (Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, Zakk Wylde), and guitar shredder Nili Brosh (Danny Elfman).
“We are celebrating our 20th anniversary,” says Brendon Small. “And what better way to do it, with Amon Amarth and Castle Rat, who embody theatrical heavy metal.”
The tour promises nothing less than total sensory immersion. “We’re going to entertain you as hard as we possibly can with the power of heavy metal in many kinds of ways, and many different iterations — from Viking battleships to Castle Rat to Dethklok with our music and fast-paced, insane animation.”
“This Time for Real” explores the balanced weight of expectation that comes with success as an artist. Nick Murphy – the ARIA-winning songwriter, musician, and producer behind Chet Faker – continues to open up new vulnerabilities, building the world around his forthcoming album, A Love For Strangers, which is an album that sees Murphy coming full circle and returning to the sense of exploration that led him to make music as Chet Faker in the first place.
The follow-up to 2021’s Hotel Surrender, A Love For Strangers emerged from a sense of personal rediscovery that was sharpened after the 10-year anniversary of his debut full-length, the sensational and career-ascendant Built On Glass. In a career defined by restless creativity – spanning albums under his birth name Nick Murphy, including the lauded instrumental work Music For Silence, and collaborations with artists like Flume and Marcus Marr – A Love For Strangers offers yet more proof that Chet Faker’s extraordinary musical explorations are only just beginning.
The city-sponsored Atlanta Jazz Festival continues its annual free festival at Piedmont Park, scheduled Sat-Mon, May 23rd-25th. See the lineup and more at the 49th Annual Atlanta Jazz Festival site.
Breakaway Festival features EDM/Electronic artists at Center Parc Stadium (GA State football stadium, former home of the Braves), Friday/Saturday, May 15th – 16th. No artists have yet been announced. Tickets are available ranging from $170 to $1000.
