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Saturday began as most had hoped Friday would, with the promise of great weather. The crowd at Shaky Knees can stir quite a cloud of dust over three days, so a mildly damp beginning to the festival helped in that regard.
Olivia Jean opened my day. Jean collaborated with Jack White for an album by the Black Belles, playing “garage goth.” Now a solo act, it was with some humor that she said they were playing “zombie rock” after having just finished a gig in Nashville hours earlier. Her set included at least five songs from her newest album, Raving Ghost, which was released the day before. Even though it was early, there were plenty of people ready to rock their heads to a solid set of garage rock.
Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol goes old school, playing old fashioned, straightforward hard-hitting fuzz rock. There’s an audience for that, and they showed up ready to pound their fists and rock and roll salutes. For those who may have approached due to proximity to the festival entrance, they made it clear from the start as to what they’re about with “I’m the Fucking Man.” They’re a fun band to watch. Rock on.
Next was Sunflower Bean, a much less aggressive set by an Indie pop/rock trio. The band played a fairly diverse set, showing a set that was both playful, catchy and and at times hard-rocking. Julia Cumming has the vocal range to handle a variety of styles, breezy, gritty or powerful enough to rock an arena. Guitarist Nick Kivlen’s ability to join in on lead or backing vocals also helped keep the set fresh. Where do people hear about this band – even though they’ve been together since 2013? One audience member is an admin for an indie record site and another heard about them on an Indie discussion board.
Not a sponsor, but time for a kind word to the kindest service person of the day. Delicious jalapeño corndog. I came back for more. Support services were awesome this year.
shame (sic) is considered post-punk. But when the lead singer, Charlie Steen, looks like he just stepped out from a fraternity gathering, it makes you wonder. But not for long. “Fingers of Steel” was a relatively soft beginning, but “Alibis” stepped up the energy, with Steen taking charge of the stage and the audience, exhorting the crowd with fist pumps and ample use of “mother-f***ers” to get people moving. The requisite mosh pit soon emerged, and he wouldn’t let a good time pass him by. Try “One Rizla” or “Alphabet” to quicken your pulse.
Mosh pits do take a break for crowd surfacing however.
Heartless Bastards followed at the nearby Criminal Records stage, offering a relatively low-key music to a large crowd. The band can venture from rock to blues to country, but “Only For You” tells you what you need to know, a catchy tune with a great guitar line and vocals. And try “Revolution” for similar but with a lyrical bite.
Futurebirds held sway over a growing crowd at the Piedmont stage, their alt-rock set touching on a variety of styles. Being a Georgia band can make things easy for an audience, multiplied tenfold if you start with “… and we’re from Athens.” To be fair, it’s a band that’s not searching for an audience but one they’ve built touring since 2008, and there’s nothing to not like about them. Three singer-songwriters and a seven member band offer plenty of variety to find songs to like. “Sinz & Friends” and “Trippin'” are great introductions to the band.
The Gaslight Anthem returned from a general hiatus to tour this year while recording a new album. Guitarist/vocalist Brian Fallon quickly pointed out how unnatural it was to sing on a festival stage during the day. “We’re a night band.” That could be said of a number of bands already heard this day, but the crowd was happy to have them at any time. They played “Positive Charge,” a song released just two weeks earlier and their first single released in nine years. As its name implies, it’s hopeful. As Fallon said in a release, it’s about “feeling like you want to go ahead with an open heart into the future, believing that the best years are not behind any of us.” Hopefully that’s true for the band as well, who played a rocking set that touched on songs from each of their albums.
It’s hard to say what type of band 311 is other than an anomaly. They can rock as hard as any band… to a reggae beat. Or mix in rap with a rock song. Or a funky beat. At some point, it’s just more about playing the music you want and entertaining an audience. The megawatt power of this 90’s band shone brightly at Shaky Knees. They not only played all the bigger hits – “Amber,” “Beautiful Disaster,” “Down,” “All Mixed Up” and their version of the Cure’s “Love Song,” but played with a ton of energy, particularly guitarist/singer Nick Hexum who roamed keeping the crowd engaged. Still, there was “Applied Science” where all the members participate in the drum(s) solo, a relative fixture on their sets and a fan favorite.
An informal survey of people at the giant crowd for The Mars Volta at the Peachtree stage revealed that less an a third had heard of them… but they liked it. The band is sometimes termed a progressive rock band, but eclectic rock or unconventional may apply equally. They’ve carved out their own niche, with interesting musical arrangements for anyone that favors instrumental variety in their songs and the distinctive voice of Cedric Bixler-Zavala… and the patience to keep listening. It’s one of those bands that grow on you. They began with “Roulette Dares (The Haunt of)” which also is a great place to start for anyone unfamiliar with their music, as well as, well, the entirety of Deloused in the Comatorium, their 2003 epic.
If that’s challenging music, Phantogram played a more accessible set of “trip-hop,” generally slow tempo but danceable, featuring most of their massively popular singles such as “Black Out Days” and “When I’m Small.” Against Jack Black and Tenacious D, they were the obvious choice for those that had either seen TD before or wanted something other than tongue-in-cheek rock, of which there were many.
The final headliner for the day was Muse, an English band known for their bombastic, anthemic, anti-establishment themes with an iron fist of hard rock laden with great melodies. Such things require a big stage, and Muse delivered. Although this was said to be their last stop of their US tour, the energy level was full on with a polished set of visuals suggestive of an imperious controlling government and crowd engagement. Muse doesn’t have a soft mode, so the band rocked their way through the evening. Only after “Supermassive Black Hole” halfway through the set did some of the crowd leave, likely to beat the rideshare rush. “Knights of Cydonia” was the final encore closer, an appropriate summary of how the band has observed the global polarization between left and right.
