Twenty One Pilots, Gorillaz and the Strokes are set to headline this year’s Shaky Knees Music Festival, which returns to Piedmont Park in Midtown Sept. 18-20. The lineup was announced Tuesday morning.
Other notable performers include Wu-Tang Clan, LCD Soundsystem, Blood Orange, Turnstile, Geese, Japanese Breakfast and Santigold. More than 50 acts will perform on four stages throughout the three-day event.
Presale tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. Thursday. Fans can sign up for the festival SMS list at ShakyKneesFestival.com to receive a passcode to the presale, which will offer access to the lowest-priced tickets for an hour. There are multiple tiers for one-day, two-day and three-day ticket types: general admission, general admission plus, VIP, platinum and ultimate tickets, plus 3-day group cabanas and bungalows. Any remaining tickets will go on sale after the presale.
Layaway plans are available starting at $25 for a limited time.
The Strokes, who performed at Shaky Knees in 2015 and 2021, will headline the first night. Twenty One Pilots will take over on Saturday, and Gorillaz will be the closer on Sunday.
This year’s lineup features a healthy mix of older and newer acts. Legendary New York group Wu-Tang Clan, one of the most influential rap collectives of the 1990s, will make their Shaky Knees debut on the final night. California indie rock band Pavement, formed in 1989, will hit the stage Saturday.
Brooklyn’s Geese, a breakout act of 2025, made their “Saturday Night Live” debut last month. Turnstile, formed in Baltimore in 2010, won two Grammy Awards this year: best rock album and best metal performance.
Cruz Beckham, the youngest son of Victoria and David Beckham, will also perform.
Notably, there’s a dearth of female performers among this year’s topline acts. Florence & the Machine was the last female-fronted act to headline Shaky Knees when they performed in 2016.
Credit: Ryan Fleisher
Credit: Ryan Fleisher
Georgia acts in the lineup include Conyers band Cartel and Athens quintet Hotel Fiction.
Shaky Knees will mark its second year at Piedmont Park, after moving from the smaller Central Park in 2025. Before then, the festival, primarily known for its rock and indie acts, typically occurred in the spring. The new dates and location are likely in part because of the fall of Music Midtown. Until the popular longtime Atlanta festival was canceled in 2024, it took place in September in Piedmont Park.
Shaky Knees, formed in 2013 by Tim Sweetwood of event management company C3 Presents, was first held at Historic Fourth Ward Park. The Lumineers, Jim James and Band of Horses headlined the two-day event. The festival has since expanded to three days.
Last year, Deftones, Blink-182 and My Chemical Romance headlined Shaky Knees. The festival attracts at least 50,000 attendees each year.
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