LCD Soundsystem topped the Just Like Heaven festival, the Strokes came third

Just Like Heaven ran again on Saturday at Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and the Los Angeles Times put six of the sets in order afterwards. Julius Miller, who wrote the ranking, gave the top spot to LCD Soundsystem and only third to The Strokes, and his read on the day overall was that the two of them "carried the momentum for the entire affair" while the undercard did not hold up.

It was 95 degrees. Organizers put out misting fans and cooling buses and stocked refillable water stations at both stages and along the fences between them, and the crowd turned hostile anyway. Fans who had held the VIP barrier at the Orion Stage for hours found people crawling past them once LCD Soundsystem started, arguments broke out, and the lawn behind stayed roomy enough for people to twirl in while the barrier crowd watched. One security guard, asked whether VIP wristbands got anybody onto the Clubhouse lawn, told them, "I wish I could let you all in."

Chromeo came last. The duo took the Stardust Stage just before 9 p.m., David Macklovitch in a low-cut shirt and a glittering blazer, Patrick Gemayel in a rhinestone durag and a leather vest. Two decades in they are not bad at this, but Macklovitch told the audience they were stuck between two of the "best bands in the history of recording music," and the crowd drained away regardless. By the end Gemayel was asking people to move through a talk box. Miller's verdict was that a nu-disco act sat oddly on a bill of indie rock bands.

Twin Peaks placed fifth and had the worst luck of anyone. Their 4:30 p.m. set opened with technical trouble and a sound check that ate the first ten minutes of the slot, which Miller was careful to say was not their fault, and the vocal microphones came up too quiet after that. Things turned on Butterfly. Bassist Jack Dolan lost his glasses headbanging, guitarist Clay Frankel rolled around the stage, people started crowd surfing, and the gang vocals got a mention of their own. They finished on Blue Coupe, which Miller calls their best song.

Dayglow landed fourth on charm. Frontman Sloan Struble told the 5:10 p.m. crowd it was the band's only performance of the year, greeted the room as L.A. and then corrected himself to Pasadena, and by the time Can I Call You Tonight arrived the lawn had woken up. Simple but thoroughly enjoyable was the summary, which is how it ended up in the middle.

Third place for The Strokes is the ranking's provocation, and Miller says as much before arguing they were outshone rather than off. They came on around 9:50 p.m., opened with Hard to Explain under green lasers, and are riding the run that Reality Awaits and a first Coachella booking in fifteen years has given them. Casablancas did the talking. He called it a pleasure to play near the "soon-to-be-abandoned Rose Bowl," said the festival was "like a better Coachella," and retold James Murphy asking the band to play SNL years ago while announcing a retirement: "I thought he retired 15 years ago!" They closed on The Adults Are Talking, came back for two more and ended with Selfless.

TV Girl at number two is where the review loses its composure. They played the Orion Stage at 6:05 p.m. with Jordana Nye alongside them, Brad Petering working a Roland sampler and Zoe Zeeman on bass. Petering told the crowd he could see his house from there, asked them not to stalk him, and broke into a tap dance. Nye sang some of her own material and held the high notes on Sweet to Dream. Then George Clanton came out to a scream, poured one of his three water bottles over Petering and threw the other two into the audience.

LCD Soundsystem won it, and Miller opens that entry by asking who else it could have been. They played Brookside around 7:40 p.m., and the writing about them is mostly about how the set looked: fast cuts between Nancy Whang at the keyboard, Al Doyle at the synthesizer and Murphy with his microphone cable wrapped around his arm, Whang in a cheetah print blazer, Doyle in a wide-brimmed black hat, both in gold and red eye makeup. All My Friends did the rest. Miller had heard a friend call it the best song ever made at a recent Hollywood Bowl show the band played with Pulp, and standing in the Pasadena crowd he decided he agreed.

The bill is the whole argument here. Just Like Heaven started in 2019 with MGMT, Phoenix, Beach House and Yeah Yeah Yeahs on top, missed 2020 to the pandemic, and returned in 2022 with Interpol, Modest Mouse, the Shins and M.I.A. Goldenvoice has run it annually at the same Pasadena site since, selling a "carefully curated celebration" of early-aughts indie rock, and a pool that narrow is why a ranking like this reads as a stress test on the format.

Both headliners have had a year. The Strokes released Reality Awaits, their first album in six years, and Charli XCX walked on during their Outside Lands headline set. The date and the site are on the festival tracker, and the indie hub carries the rest of the scene this bill is drawn from, Interpol included.