KCSB alumni Stiles Fraser White and Avery Morgan set out to Pasadena to report on the highlights of Goldenvoice’s Just Like Heaven festival. This year more than ever, the festival featured younger artists alongside the original indie-sleaze acts that inspired them. With a lineup to draw in fans of all ages, thousands braved the heat and descended upon the Rose Bowl golf course.
Words by Stiles Fraser White & Avery Morgan
Photos by Avery Morgan
“If you thought this was Burbank, bitch, go home! This is Pasadena. We do things differently here.” – George Clanton, Just Like Heaven 2026
There was a crazy man onstage. Spiky yellow hair. New York-in-the-60s black sunglasses. Leather jacket with nothing under it. Baggy basketball shorts. A geyser of energy. This was my first time seeing George Clanton perform live.
We were halfway through the festival. We’d come down to cover Just Like Heaven as a bit of a last hurrah for our tenure on college radio. A lot of the acts on the lineup were names commonly dropped when talking to other college radio people. The type of music people supposedly played on their radio shows “before they blew up.”
It was an honor to cover the day for our beloved KCSB.
George Clanton’s body of work extends far beyond his namesake project. As both a vanguard of the vaporwave genre and the founder of independent label 100% Electronica, Clanton has been an influential force in the indie music scene for nearly two decades. He typically resides in the space between musician and entrepreneur. But I guess Pasadena takes him somewhere else.
From my vantage point at the edge of the crowd, I watched as the cyberpunk jolted across the Stardust stage. It was hot, and I could already feel sunburns forming on the backs of my calves in the spots I had missed with my sunblock. I was equal parts woozy and stunned and amazed.
Suddenly, Clanton leaped into the crowd as electronic beats hammered from his laptop through JLH’s goliath sound system. I watched as the mass of people at the barricade worked themselves into a frenzy as he descended into them. Damn, I thought. I wonder what’s going on up there. I hope Avery’s getting some good pictures. – SFW
Just minutes before, the other photographers and I had lined up along the Stardust Stage side rail, waiting for someone with a badge of authority to wave us in. Clanton was onstage testing his mic when he suddenly launched into the chorus of singalong “Make it Forever”. The crowd began screaming, and we photographers were frantically funneled through the gate.
“I have no clue why he’s starting already,” festival staff were saying to us. “Just start shooting!”
But “Make it Forever” made it a few seconds, and Clanton left the stage. A few somber, confused moments passed before he burst back wearing full Clanton garb, shotgunned a beer, and truly began.
Clanton was very understanding of the heat we were facing. He’d prepared an endless supply of beers, water bottles, and water balloons to pour on the audience. I was no stranger to his tricks, after getting doused at the barricade for his 2024 Shabang set, but other photographers seemed appalled. As he descended into the pit, he began lunging at photographers, trying to pour water on their gear. He moved on to other victims, grabbing the heads of audience members, drenching them with liquid and hugging them tightly. He relied on the bodies of security guards to hold him upright. Nevertheless, his lips stayed glued onto the mic and the music never stopped.
You’d never correlate this onstage persona with the sound of Clanton’s music; his sprawling, new wavey songs are remarkably more “chill” than his performance energy. Sometimes the midday acts at festivals can feel awkward, with people just camping out for the evening’s headliners. But Clanton threw any doubts out the window and got the pit moving, his antics impossible to ignore. -AFM
Entering Heaven
Pasadena, CA has long existed in American memory as a place for “refined” society. Detached from Hollywood’s seedy backlot handshakes, Pasadena exports regal New Year’s parades and gladiatorial college football games to the rest of the nation.
But even with its glitz and glam, shaded boulevards and craft-style homes, there’s something weird about Pasadena. Since the 1930s, the city has attracted a bizarre cast of scientists, thinkers, and artists. No such figure is as baffling as Jack Parsons, who managed to found both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and his own occultist religion before mysteriously passing away in a laboratory accident at 37. Pasadena secretly loves its eccentrics.
I believe that the soul of Pasadena lives in the Arroyo Seco canyon, a 25-mile-long watershed that shapes the western edge of the city and twists deep into the heart of Los Angeles. You can feel the Arroyo’s ancient energy everywhere. In Van Gogh originals at the Norton Simon Museum. In the gnarled oak trees in Hahamongna State Park (home to the oldest disc golf course in the world). In art deco playhouses in the theatre district. And each year, in the bodies of thousands of dancing, screaming festival goers packed onto the Rose Bowl golf course for Just Like Heaven fest.
Helplessly unaware of the watery fate George Clanton would bestow upon us in a few hours, we energetically bounded into the festival grounds a few minutes after doors opened. A hassle-free security check let us stay armed with our tools of the trade: a camera with a set of indulgent lenses, a stool for overcoming the stage’s height, and an open notes app. As we acquainted ourselves with the surroundings, Kentuckian siblings Girl Tones were christening the Orion Stage with crunchy guitar licks and slamming drums. The duo brought raucous energy to this early stretch of the festival. Their love for performing was palpable; lead singer and guitarist Kenzie Crowe spent part of the set spinning on the floor, slashing at her instrument. Girl Tones is less than two years old, which makes JLH one of the first festivals the sisters have played. They were obviously excited about both showing their music to SoCal and experiencing the festival in its entirety.
“You know what I love about playing first?” asked Crowe between songs. “After we’re done, we get to come dance with you guys for the rest of the festival. We’ll be done with work!” -SFW
This is Lorelei
While the fields surrounding the Orion Stage would later become a nighttime sea of dusty festival goers, they resembled an arid savannah in the afternoon heat. We naturally formed human islands in the little tree shade we could find. Parasols sprouted like mushrooms from these enclaves as This Is Lorelei began their set. Nate Amos, the force behind TIL and half of the alt pop/art rock band Water From Your Eyes, sang slacker-poet lyrics poking through a wall of fuzzed-out guitars and keyboard stems. Aside from fresh single “Billy Came Back”, This Is Lorelei’s set heavily drew from their 2024 LP Box For Buddy, Box For Star. The years following this release have been monumental for Amos, who has seen a surge in popularity and overdue recognition for his versatile songwriting and hybrid acoustic/electronic production.
The smooth technicals aren’t the only speciality of this album. Box For Buddy is the first record that Amos wrote and produced while fully sober. In an interview with The Guardian’s Jazz Monroe, Amos dives into the volatile relationship he had with substance abuse and its impact on his creative work. In the years following his sobriety, Amos has shaped This Is Lorelei into a safe space for others battling their own addictions. The musician is understandably considerate of the newfound position he’s in. “The idea of being responsible for that art is really scary,” he told Monroe. “I know what it’s like to be vulnerable and then encounter art that can change the way you think about things.”
Box For Buddy has continuously transformed itself over the past two years. Amos released a “super deluxe” edition of the record featuring ten covers by a revered group of musicians across the indie world, further showcasing the album’s foundational songwriting.
My favorite moment in This Is Lorelei’s set was their performance of “I’m All Fucked Up.” The tune is one of the record’s heavy-hitting singles, and it translated perfectly to a festival atmosphere. The trio notched up their energy for this one, and it was impossible to not push through the heat and dance.
“Baby, you can feel the bass and the pounding of the drum,” sang Amos in “IAFU,” encapsulating the percussive awe you feel at Just Like Heaven. My house in Mount Washington is over 4 miles from the Rose Bowl as the crow flies, and we could still hear the low vibrating booms of soundchecked bass in the days leading up to the festival. To actually stand in front of that wall of sound felt like a musical poltergeist had commandeered my ribcage.
The Cooling Bus
As the time between present day and Just Like Heaven 2026 grows, the humble heroes of the festival will be forgotten. The misting stations. Tree shade. The baskets in the press tent that magically refilled with snacks. But no amenity of the fest was as crucial to our experience as the Cooling Bus. The bus was closed behind a bureaucratic-looking chain-link fence that was surprisingly easy to bypass. The vehicle was idling so the AC could blast. We joined a mix of fellow sweaty concertgoers and spent an hour relaxing in the cold jets of air, anxiously checking the weather app. Hopefully this article will preserve the memory of the Cooling Bus for generations to come. -SFW
Porches and Coco & Clair Clair
Aaron Maine’s project Porches took the Orion stage with a confident coolness. I paid special attention to the headstock of Maine’s guitar. Unclipped strings sprouted haphazardly from his Strat. Gaines made use of his headstock strings, occasionally striking them to produce shrill ostrich cries over his steady rhythm section. The three-piece even snuck one of my favorites, “Okay,” into the set.
The Porches performance wasn’t the last time we would see Maine at Just Like Heaven. He later appeared on the Stardust stage for a song with Atlanta pop/hip hop duo Coco & Clair Clair. This was my first time experiencing C&CC’s work and their charisma was undeniable. Shrouded in flowy cloak-like skirts and dresses, the women sang hit after hit with overwhelming ease and control. Clair Clair anchored the onstage energy, often remaining stationary behind her mic stand to sing soft, lilting melodies. Coco, on the other hand, effortlessly worked the crowd with her casually humorous verses. All the while, a video of a synchronized youth dance performance looped in the background, which built a comedic, absurd atmosphere.
KCSB hosted the pair in October 2021 for a free show in Storke Plaza. It’s hard to imagine them on-campus right by our radio station, compared to JLH’s 12-foot stage. -SFW
The Rapture
Just Like Heaven has a knack for hosting reunions (see last year’s Rilo Kiley performance). The Rapture has seen plenty of change since their forming in 1998, with Just Like Heaven hosting two reunions of completely different casts of bandmates. I hadn’t heard of the Rapture until trying to plan my JLH route, despite them being associated with some of my favorite bands. Bopping around from San Francisco to Seattle, and finally New York in the late 90s, they found inspiration in dance music clubs, infusing their post-punk sound with disco and electronica. The group found (indie) fame throughout the early 2000s, touring with Daft Punk and recording with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem through his label DFA Records.
Even the shortest descriptions of the Rapture include several breakups and reunions. During their last reunion in 2019, they played Just Like Heaven (back when it was hosted in Long Beach, whaaaat). Most of the original crew had been playing these gigs, with founder and frontman Luke Jenner acknowledging the tension: “It’s been this long gritty road trying to figure out how to be a father and a husband, which seemed a lot more important than standing on stage in front of anyone. We went to therapy, we talked it out, it’s still a little weird, but I couldn’t do it if I didn’t feel like it was gonna be some kinda personal progress. Anyway, I hope there is a long future for us, and we can build something new. Maybe you will join us someplace along the way again.” They played a show at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles on March 11, 2020, the same day a global pandemic was declared. Jenner describes the period that came after as “the best five years of [his] life”. He became a life coach, with 30 clients; a gig that supports him financially more than music ever did.
In his interview with Larry Fitzmaurice, Jenner talked about how experiences playing with other groups allowed him to “step out of being the frontman”. He’d seen bands reunite and have a tense, stiff presence onstage. He determined people instead want to see bands “in an atmosphere where there’s a feeling of openness and it’s not tense—it’s just free and easy.” One of the original Rapture members, bassist and vocalist Mattie Safer, disagreed, reacting to the news of the 2025 reunion tour in a Substack piece: “That tension—those so-called “creative differences”—is where the magic happens.”
So, Jenner stepped out onto the Stardust Stage leading a four-piece of new bandmates. As someone who knew none of this before seeing them, I couldn’t have guessed it. Despite the lack of yelling and awkward tension, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the Rapture. The bandmates occupied the full space of the stage, dancing around during instrumental breaks. When they played ‘Echoes’, the titular hit from their 2003 record, their energy as a band shined. Their music was abrasive and energetic, with lots of cowbell accompaniment.
After the allotted three songs to shoot had ended, a mysterious man tapped me on my shoulder, “Would you want to take photos from up on the stage?” I’d have followed him anywhere, and thankfully he truly had stage access. He let me galavant around the stage, and I saw a completely new perspective of the festival grounds. The sun was setting, and it was now cool enough for the crowd to dance themselves clean. Without the boundaries of shade, the crowd stretched without gaps (aside from the golf course sandpits) as far back as I could see. It was clear the Rapture was missed, and they still impressed the crowd despite so many changes throughout the years. -AFM
LCD Soundsystem
LCD Soundsystem was the first act to fill up the enormous Orion Stage with their instruments. James Murphy was casual in a pink t-shirt, making no effort to put on a rockstar persona.
Stiles had found a quiet spot to watch the act, so after shooting I joined him along the back gates, where he sat on the edge of a sandpit. This was one of the only places where the crowd was sparse. Parents with strollers and toddlers did their best to keep one eye on their children and another on James Murphy’s electric performance. Many LCD Soundsystem songs are about aging, loss, and fading friendships, and when I’ve seen them in the past, I’d been up in the front, screaming “All My Friends” alongside other 20-somethings. It felt much more apt to see older couples swaying to the tune while they watched their kids play tag in the sandpit. We were in the small percentage of Just-Like-Heaven-goers that didn’t see anyone jumping during the drop in “Dance Yrself Clean” – instead, we sat amongst the parents with zero energy and their children with endless energy.
Just Like Heaven allows kids under 10 to enter for free, making it a pretty good deal for those indie-sleaze parents. I thought of how many of these parents might have seen LCD Soundsystem 20 years ago…
“And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand
You can sleep on the plane or review what you said
When you’re drunk and the kids look impossibly tanned
You think over and over, “Hey, I’m finally dead.”
Stiles and I knew we wouldn’t be lasting through all of the Strokes, but we caught a few of Julian Casablancas’ autotuned tunes. We sauntered out to “Someday”, the final song from a very fulfilling day. Thank you to JLH and Goldenvoice for another great year! -AFM
