Splendor and Misery Fest 2026 with clipping., Fatboi Sharif, SPELLLING and more at Knockdown Center
On Thursday, August 14, 2026, Splendor & Misery Fest 2026 took place at Knockdown Center in Maspeth, NY. The festival, curated by Los Angeles’ clipping., shares the name of their second album, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. As Daveed Diggs shared during the night, the bill was comprised of acts the trio find influential with clipping. closing out the show themselves.
Queens’ Knockdown Center hosted two stages, with the smaller stage (called Texas Stage) featuring sets by Maria Chavez, evicshen, and Fatboi Sharif with the main stage featuring Ted Byrnes, Michael Foster, Webb Crawford, Sharon Udoh, and Nate Wooley performing a set together, followed by ELUCID, Shabazz Palaces, and SPELLLING before clipping.
I missed the joint set by Byrnes, Foster, Crawford, Udoh and Wooley which began at 6:45PM as I arrived an hour after their set began, so the first set I witnessed was by NYC’s ELUCID. The rapper was joined by two musicians: drummer Mekala Session and guitarist Braxton Marbury, and recently performed at NPR’s Tiny Desk with Armand Hammer (Session played drums on this performance as well). For the remaining acts in the bill, I captured all the sets except for evicshen (I figured it might be difficult to get close to her performance on the floor since her set and Shabazz Palaces overlapped). Fatboi Sharif, who closed the Texas Stage was backed by DJ Boogaveli and brought out special guests Kohai, 89 the Brainchild, and GDP.
Shabazz Palaces closed their set with a brand new song (“Jheri Curl Jump”) from their forthcoming album It’s a Style Sport that will be released on October 23rd. Before performing the track, Ishmael Butler declared that “the style is juicy like the Jheri curl.” During the penultimate set of the night by Fatboi Sharif, the New Jersey rapper was backed by DJ Boogaveli, and brought out Kohai, 89 the Brainchild, and GDP to perform with him. Sharif and GDP performed “Luchador Mask” from their Endocrine release, which I have been dying to hear live since it samples part of a song by The Murder City Devils.
Before the members of clipping. took the stage, their community manager gave a short speech to the audience about Splendor & Misery and the group starting their set at 11PM. Kicking off their set with “The Breach” off Splendor, the group ventured into older songs (“Wriggle”) from their catalog through their 2025 album, Dead Channel Sky ("Run It," and "Dominator”). About midway in clipping.’s set, Sharon Udoh (who performs as Counterfeit Madison) joined Daveed, Jonathan Snipes, and William Hutson on stage to contribute keys and vocals, with Diggs effusively stating “I’ve been saying that she’s the best thing to happen to the band since Jonathan Snipes.”
Splendor & Misery Fest was described by Diggs to the audience as “a way to say thank you for letting us make whatever the fuck we want” and that they’ve been discussing using this show as a test run to see if they should do this again someday. I’m hopeful that they are able to do this again. My first clipping. set took place 14 years ago when they were a part of a Red Bull Music Academy show called “Hardcore Activity in Progress,” and performed in a small room at Knockdown Center (where the Texas Stage was if memory serves correctly). It was truly wonderful to see them graduate to the main stage and curate their very own massive show named after their sophomore album over a decade later.