Just Like Heaven’s New Wave of 2000s Nostalgia

May 10th, 2025 – Pasadena, CA

“Stay hydrated” was the mantra repeated throughout the Just Like Heaven festival that took place on May 10 at the Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. “If I had a shot for every time I was told to stay hydrated…I would have passed out at that lawn back there,” a passerby mentioned during headliner Vampire Weekend’s set after lead singer Ezra Koenig encouraged the audience to keep cool. At a sweltering 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit (or 36 degrees Celsius as many of the European bands would call it), Just Like Heaven was as hot as hell, as Dustin Paysur, lead singer of Beach Fossils, aptly put it. However, the festival was sure to continue whether in rain or shine, and 21 bands brought heaven on earth with every set.

Photography by Carissa Leong (@carissalphoto.cr2)

“ I tried to pack as many [of] this era music into the half an hour as I possibly could,” Chris Cruse mentioned in an interview, as one of the opening acts to the festival with his upbeat techno set. The emphasis of “this era” meant the heavy 2000s indie representation, with performances including Bloc Party, Rilo Kiley, Empire of the Sun, Slowdive, and Vampire Weekend as the headliner.

Photography by Just Like Heaven, courtesy of Goldenvoice

Peter Bjorn and John performed at 1pm to an extensive crowd despite the peak of the blistering heat. The Swedish band had just begun their Writer’s Block anniversary tour after its opening night in San Francisco, performing their highly-acclaimed Writer’s Block (2006) album in full. What’s interesting about their set was that they decided to play the beloved album in reverse. “ When we reverse it, it’s a good climax,” said Peter Morén, the lead vocalist in an interview.

When asked what it was like to take the album on tour 19 years after its release, Björn Yttling, bassist, said, “it’s quite a soft album, but it’s also, in our opinion, quite timeless because it sounds really like, radical and modern still. We think so.” The band brought indie pop classics to the stage, whistling “Young Folks” up close with the audience singing along at the barricades. “Whistling at the same time you’re jumping up on the stage, it’s almost like a little game with yourself,” Morén described when asked about crowd interaction, “Will I be able to get it back to when I’m going to start playing guitar?”

Photography by Just Like Heaven, courtesy of Goldenvoice

Beach Fossils’ cool, hazy sound submerged the sun-soaked crowd in an almost otherworldly atmosphere as iridescent colors played across the screen behind them on the Orion stage. The turnout was sizable for this early in the day, and the interwoven catchiness of the bass, drums, and guitar-work had audience members readily dancing to favorite singles such as “Down The Line” off of 2017 LP Somersault and “Don’t Fade Away” off of Bunny (2023). Between tracks which spotlighted his dreamy vocals, Paysur voiced his support for Slowdive’s set later toward the evening, as the bands had just wrapped up their partnered spring tour run through Australia only days previously.

Photography by Carissa Leong (@carissalphoto.cr2)

Swedish band The Sounds brought indie rock to the stage with Carah Faye from Shiny Toy Guns fronting them, as lead singer Maja Ivarsson was unable to make it due to visa complications, marking the second time The Sounds were incomplete at Just Like Heaven. “ I have no idea why she couldn’t make it, maybe she didn’t make a deadline, whatever, but like there is a serious problem at the border right now,” Cruse mentioned in an interview, addressing that moment. “And it’s really taking its toll. It’s affecting art and it’s affecting the feelings of liberation or like, freedom that people have. And it’s really feeling like a different era than the era that we’re celebrating right now.” However, the band persevered through their setbacks, making their hit song “Living in America” even more prevalent as Faye sang the lyrics, “we’re not living in America, but we’re not sorry.”

Photography by Just Like Heaven, courtesy of Goldenvoice

In between the Orion and the Stardust stages on opposite ends, food trucks, merchandise tents, and charging stations were made available to the audience. However, the real star of the show was the inflatable mist tent to help audiences cool down. In an interview with attendees, Sharaidy, 23, mentioned that she visited from Las Vegas to attend Just Like Heaven, making it her first festival. She went with her friend, Alondra, 23, who makes sure to attend the festival every year since it moved from Queen Mary Park, Long Beach to Brookside at the Rose Bowl in 2022. Alondra was looking forward to later performances from Bloc Party and Empire of the Sun the most. Although both of them were enjoying the festival, it was difficult not to talk about the extreme heat. “It would be better if they had iced water,” Alondra stated, as although there were many water dispensers placed throughout the venue, the water was lukewarm.

Photography by Carissa Leong (@carissalphoto.cr2)

Backdropped by a color-changing panel, the members of New Zealand-born Unknown Mortal Orchestra were composed of stylish, black-clad silhouettes as they performed a concise setlist of psychedelic rock tracks that spanned the last fourteen years of their career. This included “Boy Witch,” a brief song with playful guitar riffs that backed hazy vocal work on their 2011 self-titled album – which also hadn’t been played live since 2014 – all the way to “Heaven 7,” a completely instrumental, lo-fi track off of their newest album IC-02 Bogotá which dropped only in March this year.

Photography by Carissa Leong (@carissalphoto.cr2)

Picking back up the energy, Bloc Party performed post-punk hits as the sun began to set. “There’s so many of you, by the way,” said lead singer Kele Okereke. Bloc Party had not performed in the United States since 2023, and Okereke was visibly feeding off of the high-energy crowd celebrating their return, with charismatic jokes such as not wanting to be “punched in the face by Vampire Weekend” if Bloc Party did not follow the festival schedule. “Song for Clay (Disappear Here)” from their 2007 album, Weekend in the City, was the highlight of the set, transforming the slow, mysterious intro to hard rock that the audience were jamming out to.

Photography by Carissa Leong (@carissalphoto.cr2)

With Bloc Party and Slowdive playing at overlapping times on different stages, the competition was stacked for whichever sound that attendees wanted to immerse themselves with as they experienced the aesthetic shift from golden hour to dusk. Crossing Brookside, the shoegaze staples brought the energy back down into a dreamy lull on the Stardust stage with their long, fuzzed-out songs such as “When The Sun Hits” off of their 1994 LP Souvlaki and “Sugar for the Pill” off of their 2017 self-titled album. As the moon ascended over the Rose Bowl behind them, the quintet had a noticeable sense of comfortable confidence while jamming out onstage that alluded to their decades together as a performing band. In her ethereal blue dress, vocalist Rachel Goswell would shoot her bandmates sly smiles every so often during instrumental breaks, and as Nick Chaplin plucked deeply resonating notes out of his bass, he sported Beach Fossils merch in support of their tour openers who they persisted to play the festival with as well.

Photography by Carissa Leong (@carissalphoto.cr2)

Empire of the Sun was the most theatrical set of the evening, with a large face rising up from the stage and backup dancers dressed in costumes, perfectly emulating the outer-space theme of the overall festival. The set was turned up very loud, with a disembodied voice greeting “welcome” and “thanks for joining the empire” to the audience members. With party go-to songs such as “We Are the People,” “Walking on a Dream,” and “Alive,” the set was akin to a club, with a fog machine, strobe lights, and performing under a UV blacklight, with colored zip ties on lead singer Luke Steele’s braided hair. The band even brought out a special guest, Supa Chai, a recurring character in the Empire of the Sun’s lore after first appearing in the “Changes” music video.

Photography by Carissa Leong (@carissalphoto.cr2)

Although that was a tough act to follow, Vampire Weekend closed the festival on a high note. Performing songs from their newest 2024 album, Only God Was Above Us including “Classical” and “Gen-X Cops,” as well as crowd-favorites such as “Harmony Hall” and “Campus,” Vampire Weekend also made sure to pay homage to the indie community. Koenig mentioned that towards the end of their shows, they typically play requests from the audiences, however they wanted to choose the songs for this evening. As a pleasant surprise, the band performed snippets of indie classics, covering Phoenix’s “Lisztomania,” Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know the Better,” Beach House’s “Space Song,” Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks,” and TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me,” despite the band themselves performing that song earlier in the day. Vampire Weekend honed in on the overall feel of camaraderie at the festival, showing their appreciation to other indie bands and ending Just Like Heaven with incredible positivity.