Sublime Blast Through the Hits at Packed Shaky Knees Festival

From punks in mohawks and studded leather to kids wearing their parents’ original Sublime shirts, the crowd in front of the stage was proof of a fanbase that spans generations. It was a living cross-section of Southern California’s legacy spread across the world. Skaters, surfers, and rock fans gathered under the hot Georgia sun as Sublime made their Shaky Knees debut.

The stage was flanked by two massive blow-up dalmatians, a playful nod to their iconography. Behind the band, footage of SoCal rolled: waves, halfpipes, sun-bleached sidewalks. From the very first song, “Garden Grove” a mosh pit broke out, Jake Nowell grinning as he encouraged the chaos.

Jake stepped into his dad’s position with reverence. He thanked the crowd for decades of support, for keeping the songs alive, and talked about how grateful the band was to still be playing after all these years. The hits rolled out one after another, each one met with cheers, lifted hands and more moshpits. They kept things loose, too, joking about moving the stage over there, a tongue-in-cheek SpongeBob reference that cracked everyone up and jumping in the pond after the set.

Somehow both nostalgic and urgent, like a time capsule cracked open and still pulsing with life, it felt like a once in a lifetime sort of set. By the end, the mosh pit was still spinning and the sun was dipping low, casting long shadows across a crowd that had just watched an iconic band playout of the hottest festivals.

Review by: David Saxum; Photo by: Roger Ho/Shaky Knees

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