My Knees Were Shaky at Shaky Knees

In past columns I’ve written about my love for theater and art museums. Live music is another favorite form of entertainment for me. Having moved to Peachtree City 4 years ago, I’ve heard about this musical extravaganza, Shaky Knees, for several years, and this year I was able to attend.

I didn’t know the origin of the name when I headed there, yet a few hours into day one of three I was confronted with some shaky knees! Those were my knees while getting up and down off the ground! An alternate title for this column might be, “How Old is Too Old?”

As it turns out, the festival name was not derived from aging music aficionados grimacing while getting old bones up off the ground. In case you’re wondering (I was), Atlanta-native and festival founder, Tim Sweetwood, got the name from a lyric in the song “Steam Engine” by the band My Morning Jacket. Sweetwood returned to Atlanta after getting a marketing degree from Miami University. He cut his teeth booking talent at several local venues over the course of about a decade, and then started Shaky Knees in 2013.

Over the past… ahem… 45-ish years, I’ve attended hundreds of concerts, yet I have only attended a handful of music festivals. I have a strong bias for smaller, more intimate venues like Terminal West. Of course, some acts are too big to play those kinds of places, and there is the opportunity to see a dozen concerts worth of music in a weekend when you attend a festival. That’s an upside. The tradeoff being listening to your favorite band with tens-of-thousands of your closest friends.

I have watched videos from Lollapalooza and Coachella and felt bewildered by the size of those crowds (hundreds of thousands!). In comparison, Shaky Knees is small. That didn’t stop my knees from shaking trying to avoid being knocked over when bigger fans than me – in both size and dedication -would almost knock me over.

Now in its 13^th year, Shaky Knees 2026 was completely sold out, which means about 50,000 attendees in Piedmont Park for three consecutive days. It’s an interesting thing. There are as many as 70,000 people in Mercedes Benz for Falcons games and concerts, yet this felt much more crowded. It made me realize how much the people flow and vertical seating of a large stadium changes the dynamic to feel far less overwhelming.

Compounding the discomfort of being amongst a huge volume of people was the heat. Let me say when you are short and standing among a lot of dudes who have taken their shirts off and have their arms up waving to the music it’s a pit fest instead of music fest.

These were personal challenges to enjoying my time there. Not things the festival organizers can fix for me, and they deserve credit for all the things that were well done.

The event managers did an excellent job with the overall schedule. All the sets began and ended on time, and most of the schedule was staggered in a way to maximize how many different bands you could listen to in a day.

The quality of the bands was very strong.  I’m an old-time prog rock fan – King Crimson, Rush – and 27-year-old Geordie Greep was an exciting discovery at the festival.  My 21-year-old niece who was also at the festival introduced me to Alice Phoebe Lou and Fcukers. Two very different performances, and I really enjoyed them both along with many others.

They were proactive given how hot it was. In addition to the hydration stations where you could easily refill your bottle with cold water, staff was also very actively handing out cartons of water within the crowds around the four stages.

There were a lot of food options and lines were not too long. Perhaps the most noteworthy amenity were the porta potties. I know! Can you believe I said that?! There were a lot of them, never too long a line, reasonably clean, and they were the flushing variety.

The sound systems around the four stages were excellent. You could hear lyrics crisp and clear from a far distance. A good thing because most people were having to listen from far away.

I left early both nights. It was one thing to be in these massive crowds in daylight. After dark, the crowds grew larger and the uneven hilly ground with ruts and tree roots that cover Piedmont Park combined to make me very uncomfortable trying to navigate without being able to see where I was going.

It certainly was an experience! 

I listened to some great music this weekend. And still, I know I won’t be rushing to buy my pass for next year. I’ve been contemplating whether maybe I’d spend the additional money and get a VIP pass to have access to spaces closer to the stages. Maybe. More likely, I’d be willing to buy a plane ticket to go see a band I’m really interested in at a smaller venue someplace else.

As I’m aging, I’ve been focusing on a mantra of accepting gracefully the things that are no longer meant for me. No matter how hip and cool I want to be, it’s possible I need to accept that the mega-size, outdoor festival is no longer (and maybe never was) for me.