The line-up for Goldenvoice’s Just Like Heaven festival sent waves of excitement through the social-sphere. With indie and electro rock star acts like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Phoenix, The Faint, Neon Indian, Washed Out, Passion Pit, STRFKR, The Rapture, Beach House, MGMT, and Peter, Bjorn and John, my friend and I immediately confirmed, “We’re SO there!”
Billboard compared the curation of beloved acts to “all your fave bands from Coachella 2013” and Consequence of Sound sees the line-up as “your 2007 playlist come to life.”
I couldn’t agree more. There’s even bands like Funeral Party that Kaffeine Buzz began covering in 2007, Miike Snow, whom I haven’t seen live since SXSW 2010, and She Wants Revenge, whose tour we previewed in 2007.
Meanwhile, the contributing writer for AXS, the ticketing company for Just Like Heaven, thinks this is another version of Electric Daisy Carnival.
“EDM festivals are going to be in full swing, and one of the first ones up will be Just Like Heaven,” writes Kareem Gantt. “The line up for this year’s edition for the Just Like Heaven festival is jammed pack with some of the biggest names in the EDM business.” Um, what?
He even goes on to exclaim that Grizzly Bear is “is one of the top DJs in the business, and a ton of EDM up-and-comers who are hoping to snag their share of the electro pie.”
Okay, a little genre lesson, big guy. Here’s one of the top “DJs in the business,” Marshmello, whose concert last Saturday happened virtually inside of the game Fortnite, drawing an estimated 10 million live concurrent users in the short, ten minute DJ set (the YouTube views are now almost 19 million as of this publishing):
And here’s Grizzly Bear, a BAND with four musicians who make music on guitars and drums, not on a mixer, like the lovely single, “Neighbors” from the album Painted Ruins from 2018:
And here’s another kind of Grizzly Bear just for good measure:
Indie rock, alternative, and even electro is not EDM. A band may DJ from time to time, like STRFKR did in Santa Barbara last month. Just Like Heaven, despite the name, it not headlining the Cure, nor is it featuring Paul van Dyk, Diplo, Headhunterz, or Marshmello (although all these acts are playing EDC 2019).
I get it. There are more bands than ever before and no one can possibly know them all. I recently met a guy in his 30’s who had never heard of Depeche Mode (seriously?!). But that’s not his full-time job. If a music writer doesn’t know about the act he or she is writing about, don’t assume and don’t be lazy. It’s not friggin’ hard to hear them on Spotify within seconds or pull up a YouTube video in the same amount of time, even if you’re on a tight deadline. Plus, nearly every one of these acts in the line-up have been around for over 10 years (happy anniversary, Phoenix) and sell out venues like the Fonda for multiple nights, so they’re not quite in the “EDM up-and-comers” category.
The inaugural festival (although there has been a Just Like Heaven festival in Italy in 2017 with a non-DJ act Cigarettes After Sex as the headliner) takes place Saturday, May 4th in Long Beach at Queen Mary Park. If you’re in Los Angeles or near a Metro line, getting to Long Beach is pretty easy on the Blue Line. This is a fantastic move by Goldenvoice and will be a great pre-summer party not to be missed.
