8 Artists You Don’t Want to Miss at Just Like Heaven 2026

Goldenvoice’s indie time machine lands at the Rose Bowl on August 22 — here are the ten acts worth showing up early for.

Written by Eric B. Thornton

Summer is still going hot and strong, well, at least for the festival landscape. Just Like Heaven is the indie-leaning cousin in the Goldenvoice family, from the same juggernaut that gave us Coachella, and it has become the closest thing SoCal has to a spiritual successor to the dearly departed FYF Fest. Now in its sixth year, it sets up shop at Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena — a short drive from LA, a big grassy field, and a lineup engineered to induce full-body nostalgia in indie lovers young and old.

Past editions have leaned on heavyweights from across the indie spectrum — M.I.A., Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Phoenix — and this year’s bill, headlined by The Strokes and LCD Soundsystem, keeps that bar exactly where it should be. And while there aren’t a ton of capital-D “DJs” on the flyer, don’t let that fool you: this is a lineup absolutely built to dance to. The whole thing goes down Saturday, August 22, 2026. If you’re going (you should be), here are the ten acts you don’t want to miss.

There aren’t a ton of capital-D ‘DJs’ on the flyer — but don’t let that fool you: this is a lineup absolutely built to dance to.

The Strokes

The band that kicked the door open. When “Is This It” landed in 2001, it reset the entire template for what a rock band could look and sound like in the new millennium, and two decades later, New York City’s The Strokes still carry that. Live, they can be gloriously loose — “Last Nite,” “Reptilia,” and “You Only Live Once” hit like muscle memory for anyone who came up in the blog-rock era. This is the one the whole weekend is built around. We can’t wait to see what Julian Casablanca will bring to the show.

LCD Soundsystem

Just across the bridge, this band from Brooklyn has a talent that makes existential dread this danceable. LCD Soundsystem turns the dancefloor into a place to feel everything at once. “All My Friends” builds into one of the most cathartic crescendos in modern music, and “Dance Yrself Clean” detonates about three minutes in with a drop that still levels rooms. James Murphy is a bandleader, a philosopher, and a killer selector all at once, and his group’s live sets remain a masterclass in tension and release. Bring comfortable shoes; you will not be standing still. A co-headliner in the truest sense.

Dayglow

Rounding out the headliners is Dayglow, the sunniest name on the flyer and proof of how far a bedroom-pop project can travel. Sloan Struble built his whole sound on maximalist, feel-good euphoria, and tracks like “Can I Call You Tonight?” and “Close to You” have become the kind of hands-in-the-air singalongs that translate perfectly to a Pasadena sunset. His live show is all bright synths and boundless energy, a jolt of pure serotonin between the heavier headliners. If you want your festival day to feel like a warm afternoon that refuses to end, this is your set.

Chromeo

Funk-lectro’s finest ambassadors, Chromeo have spent twenty years proving that “self-described funky Jewish and Arab dudes” is a perfectly good foundation for one of the tightest live acts around. Dave 1’s guitar licks and P-Thugg’s talkbox turn cuts like “Jealous (I Ain’t With It)” and “Fancy Footwork” into slick, grinning dancefloor gold. Their most recent record, “Adult Contemporary,” leaned further into that lush, retro-luxe groove without losing an ounce of the wink. Few acts on this bill will make you move as reliably.

The Rapture

If you want to trace the exact spot where indie rock and the dancefloor collided, start with The Rapture. The DFA Records mainstays practically wrote the blueprint for dance-punk. “House of Jealous Lovers” and “Echoes” are foundational documents, all cowbell, disco-panic bass, and yelped vocals. Seeing them on a bill like this is a reminder of just how much of today’s indie-dance world grew out of what they were doing in early-2000s New York. Cathartic, chaotic, and impossible to stand still through.

STRFKR

Portland’s STRFKR make psych-tinged dance-pop that always feels like the confetti is about to drop. “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” and “While I’m Alive” are blissed-out, bittersweet earworms that sound even better shouted with a few thousand strangers in a field. Their live sets have a loose, joyful, anything-goes streak, with costumes, inflatables, general good-natured mayhem included. A perfect mid-afternoon reset before the headliners take over.

Matt and Kim

There may be no more relentlessly joyful live act in existence than Matt and Kim. The Brooklyn duo have made a whole career out of pure, grinning, jump-up-and-down energy. Their songs are basically engineered to make a crowd lose its collective mind. Kim’s drumming is a full-contact sport and Matt’s between-song banter turns a set into a block party you never want to leave.

Feist

A moment of grace in the middle of all the movement. Feist has one of the most quietly devastating voices in indie music, and hearing “1234” or “My Moon My Man” live is a reminder of how much power lives in restraint. Her recent record “Multitudes” found new emotional range without abandoning the warmth that made her a household name, and her live arrangements can swing from hushed intimacy to full-band swell in a heartbeat. It’s the set you’ll be grateful you didn’t skip. Bring someone you love.

Six years in, Just Like Heaven has figured out exactly what it is: a one-day time machine that treats indie nostalgia not as a gimmick but as a genuine reason to gather. Whether you came up on The Strokes or discovered TV Girl on your phone last year, Pasadena on August 22 is where all of it lives in the same field for a day. See you in the crowd.