SHAKY KNEES 2026 – DAY 3
Posted by Liz and John Attaway, 9/21/26
The last and final day of the Shaky Knees festival came and went too fast! The final day was the big grand finale with so many musical acts to catch that it was a glorious whirlwind of music! On top of that it was so hot all weekend, standing in the hot sun to sing to your favorite songs? Yes, a lot of sweat couldn’t keep us away from acts we had never seen. And none of the music from Sunday I had seen so it was a treat, like Coheed and Cambria and OK GO.
Let’s start with my two favorite performances of the day: Coheed and Cambria and Ok Go.
Coheed and Cambria has been on my list for such a long time to check out but timing was never right. This progressive rock band out of New York came out swinging with two of their bigger hits, A Favor House Atlantic and Blood Red Summer . For me that was a treat because those are two of the songs that I definitely wanted to hear! As for Coheed’s sound, true story, I thought the lead singer, Sanchez, might be a girl when I first heard them. My husband, John, laughed and said no. But, their sound is just so unique with peppy vocals on some songs and screaming on another with tons of grunge, punk, and rock riffs. We really enjoyed their show’s visuals and energy.
OK GO has some of the coolest 2000s videos around and when they announced they would be coming through Shaky Knees, I knew I had to see them. OK GO is a late 90s formed rock band out of LA that put peppy lyrics with fun guitar and drums, while many of their songs were dance-y (is that a word?). They are just a fun band to watch and enjoy even if you don’t know their songs. The moment of the festival happened here! The sound went out on them from the sound booth and the lead singer, Damian, came out into the media pit near the center and stood and sang acoustic. It was very close to us so that was a treat to get such a rare quiet performance from such a lively band. Also, they sang two songs I wanted to hear Here It Goes Again and Upside Down & Inside Out. Overall, a good show.
As for the rest, we enjoyed them all, as well.
We started the day with Violet Grohl, daughter of Dave Grohl, and she follows in his footsteps with powerful rock and grunge elements yet soft melodious vocals. Next was Coheed and OK Go we talked about above. After that was Modest Mouse with fun lyrics, rock riffs and he tried to play the guitar blindfolded. On to Wu tang Clan who brought their A game with their old school rap vibes that was a refreshing change of pace for the mostly rock festival.
The performance and band we really wanted to see were Gorilllaz. The Dare album with De La Sol is one of my favorite from the 2000s and their first few albums are chocked full of goodies. They played a heavy mix of new albums with a few older gems sprinkled throughout but what was stunning was their visual show. It was their typical cast of characters like 2-D (lead singer) and Noodle (bassist) playing instruments or portions of their iconic music videos. They did end the night out with Feel Good Inc and a few of the Dare album songs that we heard walking out. I wish they had played some a little earlier, but overall people did seem to enjoy the show.
Just a note: we missed day 2 as we got there about 6:30 pm and a thunderstorm evacuated us right after. We didn’t see bands that day.
