Shaky Knees Music Festival this year kicked off this Friday with standout performances from cult classics like Deftones, Sublime and Lenny Kravitz and energizing performances from rising stars Idles and The Marías. Moving from Central Park’s spring slot to the indefinitely-tabled Music Midtown’s fall slot at Piedmont Park, the festival has drastically increased its scale of operations while staying true to its rock ‘n’ roll roots.
About the Festival
This year’s festival features four stages and makes full use of Piedmont Park’s size upgrade to accommodate the inrush of attendees. They will host over 40 food vendors throughout the weekend, including multiple vendor “houses” with free giveaways.
The blocks of 10th St. from Monroe to Piedmont Ave. were closed ahead of the festival on Friday and will remain closed through the weekend. The closure, along with staff, allowed for smooth entering and exiting processes — organizers encouraged attendees to use public transit, and last night, MARTA officials safely guided pedestrians to the Midtown stop just blocks away.
The festival opens on Saturday and Sunday at 11:30 a.m. with headliners My Chemical Romance and Blink-182 closing out around 11 p.m. While Saturday’s day passes are sold out, a limited number of Sunday passes are still available.
Sounds from Friday
Inhaler kicked off Shaky Knees 2025, and they wasted no time in setting the tone for the whole weekend. The Irish group drew crowds early to the festival, and they were not left disappointed; Inhaler played an energetic, feel-good set even in the unyielding heat of September in Atlanta. They played songs from across their discography including fan-favorites like “It Won’t Always Be Like This” and “Dublin in Ecstasy” as well as tracks off of their new album “Open Wide,” which fans enthusiastically sang back to them.
Sublime stood out as one of the highest-energy performances of the day. As of 2023, the surf-punk band has resumed touring with its original members. Jakob Nowell took the place of his late father Bradley Nowell as the band’s frontman. He brought the Long Beach vibes to Atlanta with renditions of old songs like “Doin’ Time” and their newest single “Ensenada” written by Jakob.
Idles was the next band to grace the festival, and they delivered a set that quickly had the crowd in motion, forming mosh pits and carrying crowd-surfers towards the stage. The Bristol punk band is fresh off three Grammy nominations for last year’s “TANGK,” which has since cemented them as one of the most important faces of modern rock. If the “Idles” t-shirts on festival-goers were anything to go by, many fans came to see them, and the band exceeded the expectations from the moment “War” began to the last notes of “Rottweiler.”
Fans of The Marías packed out the Piedmont Stage for one of their last performances on their “Submarine” tour. Lead singer María Zardoya remains one of the most graceful performers in today’s music scene. She left the crowd in awe with her performance of “Only In My Dreams” as she laid on a pedestal surrounded by fog. However, she left the crowd bouncing as she closed out the set with “Cariño,” an upbeat Spanish ode dedicated to her father that remains one of the band’s biggest hits.
Stay tuned for more updates and artist interviews from the Technique this weekend!