The third day of the Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, Georgia took a turn for softer, more melodic sounds. After a lot of loud, aggressive rockers in the first two days, the final day of the festival featured a lot of beat-heavy or melodic bands.
Frankie Rose’s new wave pop rock opened the day at the Ponce de Leon stage. The former Vivian Girls and Dum Dum Girls member played a selection of songs from her 10-year solo career. Glossy synthesizers, programmed drums, and bass-heavy mid-tempo grooves dominated the set. “We’re used to playing in pitch black, so we’re feeling very exposed,” Rose said of the outdoor gig. “Everything you know is a lie,” Rose sang on “Red Museum,” her voice harmonizing with breezy programmed vocals. The performance was one of contrast, with low-thudding basslines defying the bright, sugary synths and Rose’s swirling voice.
The thumping bass and psychedelic synthesizers of Sir Sly treated a large early crowd to infectious indie pop. Frontman Landon Jacobs danced and flailed around the stage, spitting out staccato rhymes. The hip-hop rhythms and cadence of “Gold” brought energy to the stage, with Jacobs jamming out on guitar while drummer Jason Copeland pounded out the beat. During “Ghost,” Jacobs climbed the scaffolding and sang one of the verses while scoping out the crowd from the top. “When my family asks what it’s like to be on tour, I tell them I get to do cool things like climb on shit that I’m not supposed to,” he said after the song.
Toronto pop rockers Alvvays delivered catchy indie pop, full of shimmering guitars and dream-like vocals. “There’s no turning back after what’s been said,” Molly Rankin sang on “In Undertow,” strumming through the jangling rhythm. The melodic, bouncy “Plimsoll Punks” and the soft ballad “Dreams Tonight” were highlights. Though Alvvays’s sound is jangly and sunny, at times the guitars of Rankin and Alec O’Hanley add a rock edge, making them a good bridge between the heavier rock bands in the festival and the lighter fare.
Australian band Parcels brought funky grooves to Shaky Knees. Guitarist Jules Crommelin and keyboardist Louie Swain led the electro-funk set, featuring disco dance beats, retro vocal harmonies, jazz-funk rhythms, and a hint of rock. The songs featured sparse vocals, with the slick grooves taking priority. Though the setlist was a bit repetitive in tone, like Matt and Kim the night before, it was a good dance interjection into a festival with a lot of screaming and distortion.
The hardest rocking performance of the day was by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Defying the Atlanta heat, the leather jacket-clad San Francisco rockers plowed through a set of gritty retro rock. Guitarist Peter Hayes and bassist/guitarist Robert Levon Been shared lead vocal duties, switching back and forth, sometimes within the same song. With the backing of Leah Shapiro’s pounding drums, Hayes and Been led a frenzied and passionate performance, such as with the heavy blues rock strut of “Spread Your Love.” During a rousing rendition of “Whatever Happened to My Rock and Roll,” Been jumped into the photo pit and played his bass within reach of the first few rows of the crowd.
The 7:30 performances were odd to say the least. On the Ponce de Leon stage, The Voidz were a hot mess. Playing psychedelic pop rock with discordant sounds that sometimes didn’t resemble a melody, singer Julian Casablancas paced around the stage, singing while mostly looking at the floor. Though the performance was disjointed, noisy, and at times just plain weird, there were some good moments, such as the bluesy rock of “Coul as a Ghoul” and the hook-laden rocker “Pyramid of Bones.” For the encore, the Voidz played an energetic cover of The Strokes’ “I’ll Try Anything Once.” Meanwhile, on the Piedmont stage, Jack Black and Kyle Gass, aka Tenacious D, did … whatever it is that Tenacious D does.
The National then closed out the festival on a softer note than the other two headliners. Their soft rock set was brooding yet passionate, melodic with subtle flares of intensity. Singer Matt Berninger was restrained, his subtle tenor serenading the exhausted crowd. In “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” which featured Aaron Dessner’s best guitar work, Berninger abruptly shifted from calmly crooning into the microphone into belting out the chorus. The song ended with Dessner’s blazing guitar solo, an underrated aspect of the National’s work. The uptempo “Day I Die” and the bouncing piano pop of “Don’t Swallow the Cap” were other standouts of the set.
Though day three of Shaky Knees didn’t live up to the high bar set by the first two days, the festival as a whole was a success, gathering some of the best acts in rock music for a weekend experiment in all of the different ways to rock a stage.
