Just Like Heaven 2022: Pasadena’s own slice of indie-music bliss

May 25, 2022 by 3 Comments

Just Like Heaven 2022 - Interpol, Santigold & The ShinsPhotos by Josh Herwitt & courtesy of JLH with artwork by Melissa Herwitt // Written by Josh Herwitt //

Just Like Heaven //
Brookside at the Rose Bowl – Pasadena, CA
May 21st, 2022 //

For those of you in California who haven’t noticed yet, we’re right in the midst of festival season.

With Coachella wrapping up last month and Lightning in a Bottle as well as BottleRock taking place over Memorial Day weekend, 2022 has already brought the live music industry back to the Golden State in a big way (and let’s make sure we mention BeachLife Festival, too).

But for those of us who haven’t been attending music festivals for a few years in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s even more exciting when any concert promoter can assemble a lineup of great artists and bands to perform all on the same day. That’s what Goldenvoice did, in fact, when it announced the return of Just Like Heaven with a dream lineup for any indie-music fan during the mid-2000s, anchored by Interpol, Modest Mouse, The Shins and M.I.A. with Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Chromeo, Santigold, Cut Copy, The Hives, Wolf Parade, Peaches and !!! also listed on the poster.

After taking over the Queen Mary Park in Long Beach for its debut in 2019, Just Like Heaven has found greener pastures to call home 35 miles north in Pasadena at the Brookside Golf Course adjacent to the Rose Bowl. It’s a proven location for hosting music festivals at this point after holding several large-scale events there before like Shaun White’s inaugural Air + Style and both editions of Goldenvoice’s two-day Arroyo Seco Weekend. But with the AEG-owned company’s other single-day fest Cruel World occupying the site two days the previous weekend and more music festivals like This Ain’t No Picnic scheduled for August, it’s safe to say that the Brookside is becoming quite a hotspot for Goldenvoice of late.

Just Like Heaven, nevertheless, seemingly fits the bill for Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett. And though the festival didn’t sell out nor was a second day added this time around, it still felt like quite a success given everything we have endured for more than two years. If anything, it was a brief reminder of what life felt like before the pandemic.

Just Like Heaven 2022 - Peaches


Peaches

While there wasn’t one performance at Just Like Heaven that stood above the rest, there were certainly highlights throughout the day — starting as early as 2 p.m. when Peaches stepped onto the main stage with an array of scantily-clad costumes to celebrate the belated 20th anniversary of her second LP The Teaches of Peaches. For those who got there in time to witness the Canadian electroclash musician in all her glory, it was 50 minutes we’ll never forget as Merrill Nisker delivered one erotic moment after the next alongside her backing band and backup dancers who were wearing as little as her. Sure, hearing Wolf Parade play 2005’s Apologies to the Queen Mary right after wasn’t quite as entertaining, but it did feel apropos given Just Like Heaven’s prior location, setting us up for an evening of classic indie rock.

By the time Franz Ferdinand took the stage for their 5:10 p.m. start, you could tell that the attendance had grown considerably compared to what it was earlier for late-afternoon sets by Kele Okereke, The Hives and Cut Copy. Of course the latter did their best to turn the daytime dance party up a notch with crowd-pleasers such as “Lights and Music” and “Hearts on Fire” off 2008’s In Ghost Colours, but it was Franz Ferndinand, Santigold and Bloc Party who shepherded us through the early evening (and one of them even made us pretend like we were back in 2005 listening to Silent Alarm for the first time again).

One of our only grievances with Just Like Heaven this year was scheduling Chromeo to perform exactly when The Shins were, leaving us less of an opportunity to catch both acts during the sunset. But James Mercer and his sidekicks made the most of it after a long time away from touring, offering 15 cuts across the band’s catalog before finishing with a rare cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “American Girl” as the sun fell behind the San Gabriel Mountains.

From there, the remaining hours of the festival belonged to Modest Mouse, M.I.A. and Interpol. With the first two receiving 60 minutes on their respective stages — Orion and Stardust — each made a point to placate the more casual listener with commercial hits like “Float On” and “Paper Planes” receiving their three minutes in the spotlight. But while some of the songs on Modest Mouse’s 2021 album The Golden Casket don’t translate as well to a live setting as their older material and M.I.A.’s show can often be a bit too bizarre for some, Interpol was there at the end to ground us and bring it all home.

The NYC post-punk revival trio has been on the road for about a month after completing The Other Side of Make-Believe, and although we will have to wait until mid-July for their seventh studio effort to arrive, Interpol did provide a preview of sorts with “Fables” and “Toni” sprinkled into a setlist highlighted by one of our personal favorites “Rest My Chemistry” from 2007’s Our Love to Admire. Yet, it was only fitting on this night for Interpol to also uncork “The Heinrich Maneuver” from the same record that hears frontman Paul Banks ask the audience in the opening lyric, “How are things on the West Coast?” before replying, “I hear you’re moving real fine.” With Just Like Heaven alive and well after a three-year hiatus and new music from Interpol on the horizon, there’s no doubt we are now.

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Arroyo Seco Weekend 2018: Ringing in summer at Goldenvoice’s chilled-out Coachella for grown-ups

June 29, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Arroyo Seco Weekend 2018Photos courtesy of Arroyo Seco Weekend // Written by Josh Herwitt //

Arroyo Seco Weekend //
Brookside at the Rose Bowl – Pasadena, CA
June 23rd-24th, 2018 //

No matter how old you are, going to a music festival can be a taxing and tiring affair. There’s a lot of walking, a lot of standing, a good amount of dancing and/or rocking out (depending, of course, on your energy level), and more walking and standing. If “festival shape” isn’t a catch phrase yet, it certainly should be. Because for some of us aging live music fans, being on your feet 8-10 hours and in the sun for two, three or four straight days isn’t as easy as it used to be.

Music festivals, in that regard, are designed primarily for the young and youthful, or at least for those who remain young at heart. So, when famed Southern California concert promoter Goldenvoice, best known for founding and organizing the world-renowned Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival every April, announced last year that it would be launching a brand-new, two-day event in Pasadena focused on various forms of rock, funk, folk and country, it served as an opportunity for a different generation of live music fans to experience the same platform that has dominated the industry for the past decade (and for some who are parents, possibly understand why their kids like going to Coachella so much).

Arroyo Seco Weekend 2018 - Neil Young + Promise of the Real


Neil Young + Promise of the Real

With its second installment now in the books, Arroyo Seco Weekend has already carved out a solid niche in Los Angeles’ massive live music scene with a winning combination: great music and high-quality, top-notch local food and drink. It’s the same formula that has made Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco a huge success for longer than 10 years, but it’s still one that had also been largely absent from Southern California music festivals until four years ago when Goldenvoice started making a concerted effort to partner with top-notch LA eateries and restaurants for both weekends of Coachella. That’s where the comparisons end, though.

Arroyo Seco is really its own thing. There’s no denying, even after only a couple of years on the calendar, that it fosters a much different vibe than Coachella or Goldenvoice’s other LA area music festival, FYF Fest, which was surprisingly canceled five weeks after dropping its 2018 lineup due to reportedly poor ticket sales. But with a clear identity from the start, ASW stands more than a fighting chance at a time when music festivals are sadly a dime a dozen (except for the ticket price).

Arroyo Seco Weekend 2018 - Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters


Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters

Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett and his team, for one, came out of the gate swinging for ASW’s inaugural edition with a roster led by the late Tom Petty, which unfortunately ended up to be one of his final performances before his unexpected death, and British folk rockers Mumford and Sons, plus Alabama Shakes, Weezer, The Meters, The Shins, Dawes, Fitz & the Tantrums, Live, Andrew Bird, Broken Social Scene, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Charles Bradley & The Extraordinaires, Galactic and many more all making appearances. That didn’t mean, of course, it was void of suffering a letdown in Year 2, but such a thought was quickly put to rest when the fest’s 2018 bill came out and proved to be equally good, if not better than what 2017 offered. With rock legends like Neil Young and Robert Plant sharing the top of the poster with modern-day rock stars such as Jack White and Kings of Leon, ASW made sure to cater to more than four generations of live music fans, much like the longtime New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — which White, Lukas Nelson + Promise of the Real (who also often serve as Young’s backing band), Irma Thomas and Aaron Neville, fittingly enough, all played this year — does each spring in The Big Easy. Throw in some nicer weather and some California-cool flavoring, and you’ve essentially got ASW. So, call it “#Dadchella” if you want, but that won’t stop those of us who are currently in our 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s from going again.

If rock is supposedly “dead” like so many say it is these days, you wouldn’t know it from the size of the crowd that descended upon the Brookside Golf Course adjacent to the Rose Bowl Stadium on a couple of hot summer days. ASW, rather, proved just the opposite, with even a few throwbacks, the Pretenders and Alanis Morrisette most notably, drawing large numbers over at the main stage. Then there were singer-songwriters Seu Jorge, Shakey Graves, Margo Price and Dwight Twilley, as well as blues savior Gary Clark Jr., pouring out their hearts and souls in what felt like a family-friendly environment (maybe the baby strollers helped). And how about Inglewood-bred jazz virtuoso Kamasi Washington mesmerizing with a powerful, mid-afternoon set? There were plenty of memories to be made at ASW in 2018, and we were just grateful to be there to bear witness to them.

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Outside Lands Day 2: HAIM take another step toward the top

August 10, 2014 by 1 Comment

HAIM_postPhotos by Marc Fong // Written by Mike Frash //

Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival //
Golden Gate Park – San Francisco
August 8th-10th, 2014 //

Saturday brought a more celebratory tone to Outside Lands Music and Arts Festiva despite the typical August fog’s return to SF’s Golden Gate Park. Following Kanye West’s exciting Friday set that was marred by multiple man-baby moments, it was time for smiles to become contagious and for the communal spirit of the fest to take flight.

No one led this Day 2 transition better than HAIM. “I want to see babes on babes on babes. Totem pole!” demanded ESTE FUCKING HAIM of the Outside Lands crowd, and oblige they did. An effective festival technique, Alana, Danielle and Este quickly counted as festivalgoers doubled up toward the sky like a meerkat looking for a predator. And by the time the awesome threesome blasted into “Forever”, the crowd had been primed by funny, engaging banter.

More importantly, they are remarkably talented at what they do. HAIM fucking rocks live. They elongate and have adapted some of their songs, like “Forever”, for the better. Before introducing “The Wire”, Danielle prepped the audience for the call and response of “Right!”. Full buy-in permeated the Lands End stage as most everyone joined in the fun.

If HAIM continue to write undeniably catchy songs while retaining their fierce attitudes, the sky’s the limit. The atypical vocal phrasing never gets old, and I hope they continue to create music that develops around their quirky approach to modern pop while re-purposing the familiar. These Los Angeles-based sisters could be headlining big festivals in 3-5 years.

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• Jagwar Ma displayed noted improvement since their show last year at The Independent, the group has expanded their sound further on stage, stretching out the vocal mantras into delirious territory. Jano Ma’s production showed shades of Nine Inch Nails, balancing Moog synthesizer and a squelchy analogue sound.

• Big Freedia was everywhere Saturday. The Queen Diva brought a taste of NOLA to the new GastroMagic stage, allowing proactive patrons to cook up a beignet while they got there bounce on. Then, Freedia was at the Soundwave tent, and finally for her proper set at the Panhandle Stage. Ass Everywhere!

• SF-based graphic designer-turned-musician-turned-full-band Tycho had a prime spot mid-day at Twin Peaks, but it’s unclear if Scott Hansen’s minimalist approach translates in a big, open field at a festival. While the crowd energy was low as expected, it was a solid set accompanied by a new, intriguingly odd video component.

• The Sutro Stage was alive with an intimate crowd for Deer Tick. Screaming fans belted out lyrics and danced with interlocked arms to the group’s raucous, twangy Southern rock.

• Duck Sauce is refreshing for embracing the absurd, boiling down dance music into explosions of bass with melodies as obnoxious as “Gangum Style” or happy hardcore. But A-Trak and Armand Van Helden have pinpointed the perfect equation for a ridiculously good time, making sure not to ever get too jarring or obvious. When looking for a raging, good time in a festival setting, nothing may be more fun than Duck Sauce. Quack.

• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are just about as “legend” as it gets, and tracks from Petty’s 2014 LP Hypnotic Eye were laced throughout the main stage headliner’s set. “Friend of the Devil” was covered, a nod and a wink to the Grateful Dead’s home turf, while “American Girl” finished of the night on a high note.

• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis at Twin Peaks was way more crowded than Tom Petty’s show. Macklemore brought out Mary Lambert for the GBLT anthem “Same Love”, which included a wedding proposal well-suited for SF.

What was your favorite show or moment on Saturday? What are you looking forward to Sunday?

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Five Outside Lands trends in 2014

April 9, 2014 by 3 Comments

Outside Lands 2014Photos by Marc Fong // Written by Mike Frash & Kevin Quandt //

Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival //
Golden Gate Park – San Francisco
August 8th-10th, 2014 //

The lineup for the seventh annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, taking place August 8th-10th in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, was announced Tuesday. Headliners Kanye West, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and The Killers were the focus of the many knee-jerk reactions, but what does the lineup say as a whole? Here are five trends we’ve spotted.

Three-day passes for the festival go on sale Thursday, April 10th at 10 a.m.

Outside-Lands

1. RAP IS REPRESENTED MORE THAN EVER
Outside Lands missed out on the OutKast nostalgia sweepstakes, but the far more controversial (and relevant), Yeezus has been crowned as the first rap headliner in the festival’s history (see below). Beastie Boys were slotted to headline the festival in 2009, and they sadly had to pull out due to Adam Yauch’s cancer diagnosis. Tenacious D ultimately became the headliner over M.I.A. The Bay Area doesn’t attract an abundance of hip-hop or rap in general, yet many in the SF music community have wondered when Outside Lands, now a top national festival, would get into the game. El-P and Killer Mike, one of most dynamic music duos in years, are working on a follow-up to their incredible Run the Jewels debut and are sure get Golden Gate Park pumped. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performed at noon in 2011 at Outside Lands, and since then, they own four major singles and seemingly sell out every show they perform. But they are dangerously within the range of overexposure, and since winning “Best Rap Album” at the Grammys over Kendrick Lamar (and Macklemore felt the need to text-apologize to Lamar), some music fans are out for vitriolic blood. That said, Macklemore’s impact on the popular music landscape is undeniable. Atmosphere, Aer and Watsky, also successful suburban-oriented spitters in their own right, are also on the bill this year.

2. KANYE WEST IS AS DIVISIVE A FIGURE AS EVER
Reaction to Kanye West as the top headliner was distinctively negative Tuesday, at least from the loudest people. West is at the peak of his career, releasing two of the most essential albums of the past five years with Yeezus and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The mega-narcissistic artist of a generation is already busy working on a follow-up to be produced by Q-Tip and Rick Rubin, and it may be out before Outside Lands in August. Odds are Yeezus will pull back from minimalist trap production and go back to his soul-sampling roots to cast a wider net. West has won over music critics with his recent boundary-pushing efforts, but the question becomes, can he avoid a Kardashian-enhanced mainstream backlash bigger than the “Swifting” he pulled at the MTV Video Music Awards? Our money is on ‘Ye.

3. THE FIRST REPEAT HEADLINER
Now in its seventh year, Outside Lands has finally reached the point when we see our first repeat headliner in the form of classic rock demigod, Tom Petty and his band the Heartbreakers. Having played on the second day of the inaugural year to a healthy-sized crowd, Petty worked through some technical errors with a set heavy on his standout hits from the past decades. A new release and tour recently announced lead us to think that Mr. Charlie T. Wilbury is primed to have a big second half of 2014.

4. A SLIGHT SHIFT IN ELECTRONIC MUSIC CURATION
One thing that Showbams noticed when culling through the lineup was the inclusion of slightly more progressive EDM. What was once a genre more reserved for Treasure Island Music Festival is making its way to Golden Gate Park, hoping to turn some folks onto a newer style of electronic production. This new shift is mainly represented by Disclosure, Flume, SBTRKT and Gold Panda. Each act brings a quality that is slightly out of the “dance music” box, whether it’s Disclosure’s 2-step-garage sound or Gold Panda’s experimental beat production. Even after all these years, Another Planet and Superfly keeps us on our toes.

5. THE MOST ECLECTIC LINEUP YET
Outside Lands has always basked in musical diversity, and this notion is true now more than ever. As our collective access to music becomes easier and more plentiful, so does our acceptance of a greater variety of genres. In one weekend, festivalgoers will bounce to Big Freedia, get rural with Kacey Musgraves and dance with Duck Sauce. Whether it’s folk, EDM, hip-hop, indie rock, country or soul, Outside Lands’ eclectic lineup suits the integrity and character of SF and the Bay Area.

Follow our Outside Lands 2014 playlist on Spotify.

Outside Lands

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