Another year, another new festival because why not? This time, I headed back to the LA area, Pasadena to be more specific, to knock my number one bucket list band off that list at the Just Like Heaven Music Festival.
Taking place just outside of the Rose Bowl, of course it was over eighty degrees with no clouds the day of the fest. It’s LA, so you’re likely never getting rain, but not one cloud? Needless to say, my friend and I slathered on the sunscreen every hour for good measure. We also managed to track down spots under the very few trees on the festival grounds. For only two stages, this festival was quite large. Lots of space, plenty of restrooms, and a variety of food and drink vendors were on the property. Something different compared to other fests was that there were no other merchandise vendors besides the main t-shirt stand. That was kind of nice. It probably also had to do with the fact that it was a one-day festival.
Anyways, you don’t care about food or weather, you just want to hear about the bands! We got through the gates during the middle of The Faint’s set on the Stardust stage (the smaller of the two), and although I didn’t hear “The Geeks Were Right,” I was still loving what I was hearing. Next we sat in the shade to check out Metronomy – very cool band! What I liked a lot about this festival, especially the main stage (Orion), is that you only had to wait about fifteen minutes before the next band was up. That means we stuck around, albeit a bit closer, to enjoy Ladytron, who again, was new to me but very interesting. I multitasked getting some food while enjoying The Bravery, but the real excitement of the festival I think started with Peaches.
Familiar with some of her work thanks to Letterkenny (please, for the love of god watch this show), I was looking forward to her strange bluntness, but my goodness what a show! With just some pasties and high waisted nude spanks, Peaches went through a cache of wardrobe changes that involved unitards, some vaginal creature, and then almost nothing at all! The crowd, myself included, was all in for this set. She brought the energy and performed all the hits. She played my favorite songs, but I can now say I’m a big fan of her 2016 album Rub‘s song, “Dick in the Air.” I can certainly tell you that Future Islands did not top this performance, but was a necessary endurance to get a decent spot for Empire of the Sun.
Empire of the Sun was at the top of my must-see list and they were just fantastic. At first, I was a little bummed that a lot of the songs they played were pretty remixed compared to the album version, but these really got the crowd going. I think as the set went on, they incorporated more of the original version and they sounded incredible. I know new music is in the works, so I can only hope a proper tour is also in the works. Having seen MGMT before, I wasn’t surprised that they sounded great, but it was cool to see all the special care they took in playing Oracular Spectacular from front to back. We finished off the night with good sets from M83 and headliner Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but Peaches and Empire were certainly the highlights for me.
I miss a good one day festival (Warped Tour, you’re welcome back any time), and this one just solidified that opinion for me. I’ll be curious to see what future years bring. I certainly wouldn’t mind going back!