Just Like Heaven 2023

Just Like Heaven fest returned for its third year on May 13th just outside Los Angeles in Pasadena. It’s put on by Goldenvoice, the famed promoters behind festival juggernaut Coachella, which for many opens up and sets the tone for summer festival culture around the world each April. Established in 1981, Goldenvoice continues to add new exciting events like Portola Fest, which debuted in its namesake neighborhood in San Francisco last fall. It boasted one of the best electronic lineups in recent memory and will return for round two on September 30th and October 1st. Just Like Heaven fest similarly amazes with their ability to consistently produce jaw dropping line ups for fans within a certain range.

Putting your finger on the exact subset of music fans that Just Like Heaven speaks to is trickier than one might think. Much ado is made of the demographics who attend this festival. Millennials reliving their glory days of LCD Soundsystem soundtracked indie dance parties, eyes batting through their shutter shades at a cute stranger decked head to toe in Urban Outfitters chic. But for these music loving former hipsters, there’s a great deal of nuance in this line up.

Let’s get into the sub-genre weeds. You’ve got Peaches, back for her second year in a row, embodying the essence of the much discussed indie sleaze style. Opener Cults are ‘60s girl group worship rockers. Ladytron represents the indie electro sound of the era. Artists like M83, Caribou, Them Jeans and Cosmic Kids speak to the blog house essence of JLH. Future Island were squarely part of the chill wave movement, a genre which had its flagship artists Neon Indian and Washed Out play the inaugural JLH in 2019. You’ve got your post punk, post Strokes 2000s rock revival kingpins Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Hives and The Walkmen, as well as The Faint and The Bravery. The enigmatic MGMT are playing their debut album “Oracular Spectacular,” which features the era defining electro pop singles “Time to Pretend,” “Kids,” and “Electric Feel,” although they are all across the map stylistically, even on that debut album. Metronomy will be bringing their singular brand of wonky pop (I didn’t make that up, I heard it on the BBC). Fellow Brits Hot Chip will bring their equally singular boffin pop sound (I didn’t make that up either. I read it in The Guardian). And why Azealia Banks, the sole rap artist on the bill? Well, as she boldly (and correctly) ends her most recent single “New Bottega,” “‘cause I’m a f**king legend.”

The festival setting, Brookside at the Rose Bowl, takes place on a golf course. The bunkers make for makeshift sofas, as does the lush grass. The distance between the two stages, named Orion and Stardust, is the perfect length. There’s no sound bleed from overlapping sets but the walk is quite manageable, clocking in at about 7 minutes if you’re moving with purpose and adept at weaving drunk 35 year olds. Given the Pasadena heat, this can leave your bustling festival reporter quite sweaty. But gazing up from my sandy seat, Future Islands’ “King of Sweden” hit just right as their equally sweaty frontman sang “On a desert island, looked just like heaven.” And as the cool shade set in at dusk over the Orion Stage, it sure felt like it too.

Here is a breakdown of two of the most memorable sets:

The Walkmen - 5:15pm - Orion Stage
The Walkmen always felt like a mature older sibling amongst all the iconic 2000s rock revival bands. A bit more business like. They had short haircuts and relatively normal outfits. A nod to this comes in the lyrics from their iconic song “We’ve Been Had.” “See me age 19 with some dumb haircut from 1960, moving to New York City,” sang frontman Hamilton Leithauser, later adding, “Well I'm a modern guy. I don't care much for the go-go or the retro image I see so often.” They were of that scene and era, but slightly apart. They appeared recently on the popular music industry insider podcast, How Long Gone, which did a live recording at JLH. On a segment called “Sync Talk,” they discussed being ahead of the curve on licensing music back when it was still viewed unfavorably as “selling out.” They made the business decision to allow “We’ve Been Had” to be used in a 2003 car commercial. On their 2004 standout track “138th Street,” a reference to the location of their Harlem rehearsal space, Leithauser sang “Everyone will say you've missed your chance. Everyone will say you've lost your edge.” The Walkmen have proven those naysayers wrong. They’ve taken their opportunities, survived as a band, and maintained their venerable status, never needing an edge to begin with.

The band’s mature sound and approach was apparent in their decision to use their 50 minutes to cover just ten of their most classic output. Why cram in a few extras when your songs have aged this finely? Opener “Thinking of a Dream I Had” sufficiently upped the energy from the jump. Between Leithauser’s wounded howl and the rollicking riff and toms, folks were moving despite the heat. They smartly alternated between their other most upbeat offerings like “The Rat,” “Little House of Savages,” and “Heaven,” with beautiful ballads like “On The Water,” and “In the New Year.” When they closed their set, naturally with “We’ve Been Had,” many a friend group could be seen swaying side to side, arms around one another, reveling in the nostalgia and timeless lyrical sentiments.

MGMT - 8:35pm - Orion Stage
MGMT were given the longest set of the festival. They were billed to play their debut, 2007’s “Oracular Spectacular,” in full. Clocking in at only 40 minutes, that gave them an additional half hour to work with. How they’d spend that remained to be seen. There’s nothing but love for their debut, even though the band itself has a tepid relationship with its three smash hit singles. Their most streamed song ever, “Kids,” was so big that certain sound-like bands had flash in the pan megahits by way of imitation. Some bands, like JLH act Empire of the Sun, did it well enough to write some quality electro pop hits that stand the test of time. Others, not so much. Remember Capital Cities? Don’t bother trying. But if you throw on their 2013 song “Safe and Sound,” it will ring familiar (as well as sickeningly saccharine). Its pulsating synth bass is a blatant “Kids” rip. But they laughed all the way to the bank as that song currently sits at a billion streams.

These imitators were all over the radio and TV, which likely contributed to MGMT’s hard turn to different sonic territory. The pressure to still perform “Kids” at every festival slot clearly got to them. There were instances where they would just loop the famous synth line on repeat, and lay down on their backs with their butts towards the crowd like turtles stuck on their shells. Given this bizarre situation, it’s frankly incredible they could come back with something as catchy and successful, yet still idiosyncratic, as 2018’s “Little Dark Age.” At times, hilarious, spooky, groovy, and blissful all at once, it’s truly one of the greatest achievements of any of these JLH bands. The title track now ranks as highly streamed of any of their big three singles. The second single, the timeless sounding “Me and Michael,” would have been the perfect soundtrack to any ‘80s John Hughes movie. In its wacky video, the band takes the piss out out of their success in a way only MGMT could pull off. Fitting for a band with their one of a kind career.

And on that note, MGMT’s performance was exactly as strange and unpredictable as one would hope for from these two loveable weirdos. They were dressed in baggy, all black suits. They were accompanied by six backing dancers dressed in all white. They wore rainbow colored wraparound eyewear reminiscent of LeVar Burton’s famous Star Trek specs. Despite all the additional time, they opted to play the ten “Oracular Spectacular” tracks in order. Each had extended intros and jammed-out outros. The rest of the time was filled with various skits and hijinks. At one point they donned giant papier-mâché heads and acted out scenes from their college dorm days at Wesleyan University. My personal favorite ruse was when Andrew and Ben broke out into a spontaneous bit of one-on-one hockey. A true treat was the surprise closer, “Love Always Remains,” a 2005 track from the “Time To Pretend” EP. It was the first performance of the song in 18 years. Albeit a deep cut, it’s a testament to the band that not a beat was missed by the enrapt crowd.

Photo Credit: R Polack