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Live from Brookside at the Rose Bowl
August 26th, 2026 Review by Kevin Gomez
In May of last year, fans gathered for Just Like Heaven on one of the hottest days of the year. This year it was pushed to August, and fans once again braved the heat – a scorching 94 degrees – for the annual indie fest at Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
The parking gods were not on my side, and I unfortunately missed the opening half of Matt & Kim’s set. I could hear the energetic duo opening with “Block After Block.”
They did a fiery rendition of “Now” that had the whole crowd bouncing along frenetically. Lead singer Matt Johnson introduced “Silver Tiles” as the first song they ever wrote and even included a snippet of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes.”
They played “Daylight,” which saw drummer Kim Schifino jump on top of her drum set, and they closed their very fun set with the radio-friendly, “Let’s Go.”
Next on the Orion Stage was the highly-anticipated set from STRFKR. The electronic indie pop band opened with “While I’m Alive,” which had glimpses of Kavinsky’s “Nightcall.” “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” featured spaced-out hypnotic music as two masked figures in gold danced behind lead singer Joshua Hodges.
I saw Schifino enjoying their set side stage. While the band played “Boy Toy” and three astronauts danced on stage, a fourth came from the back of the crowd and crowd surfed to the stage. STRFKR also did a trippy cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
Vancouver’s Ekkstacy opened with “if I had a gun” followed up with the rocking “i just want to hide my face.” He played the breezy “Walk This Earth All by Myself,” and there was a gnarly bass intro on the last song of his set, “I’m So Happy.”
Dayglow had a laid back, enjoyable set. Often described as indie pop, I got beach vibes from his performance. They started out their set with lead singer-guitarist Sloan Struble singing about “False Directions” and how they were “leading me away from you.”
“Hot Rod” was giving me pop punk tendencies, feeling like something Jim Adkins would write. They did “Everything Little Thing I Say I Do” and “Crying on the Dancefloor,” then finished up with “Listerine” and “Close to You.”
TV Girl took over the Orion Stage and were joined by Jordana Nye on guitar for their entire set. Lead singer Brad Petering said, “We did an album together [2021’s “Summer’s Over” EP],” so they decided to make it a one big family affair. On songs like “Pantyhose” and “Louise,” Petering almost had a laid-back freestyle rap flow.
“Hate Yourself” featured quiet male vocals from Petering backed by powerful female vocals from Jordana and bassist, Zoe Zeeman that reminded me of The Rentals.
Jordana played two of her solo songs from the EP, “Sweet to Dream” and “Better in the Dark.” They brought out George Clanton to do their big duet, “Summer 2000 Baby,” before closing with “Lovers Rock.”
A huge turnout gathered for the night’s co-headliners, LCD Soundsystem. They immediately jumped into “Tonite” highlighted by Nancy Whang futuristic keyboards.
“Tribulations” dripped with synthesizers and sweet ass solo from guitarist Al Doyle. Lead singer, the charismatic James Murphy, joked that they wouldn’t talk much between songs, “because we write really long, dumb songs.”
And, boy he wasn’t kidding. I swear “Losing My Edge” seemed to go on for 10 minutes in a jam session meltdown culminating in Murphy repeating “I was losing my edge” endlessly. Somewhere during that madness Whang even snuck in a snippet of Yaz’s “Don’t Go.”
Personal highlight of their set for me was “Dance Yrself Clean,” launching the entire crowd into a dance party when the beat dropped. Not only a special moment for nostalgic purposes but I really feel like the crowd came alive after roasting in the sun all day and reminding everyone what a great dance act LCD Soundsystem is. They closed their set with a heartfelt rendition of “All My Friends.”
Off to the Stardust Stage to catch synth-funk duo, Chromeo. As they always do, they opened with “Intro (Chro-me-o…o…o).”
Lead singer Dave 1 was dapperly dressed in a silver sequined sports jacket, while keyboard and multi-instrumentalist P-Thugg sported a black, leather vest.
The duo nailed a sexy version of “Bonafied Lovin.’” They played the smooth “Must’ve Been / Momma’s Boy” back-to-back.
Chromeo probably had one of the most high-energy sets of the whole day, second only to Matt & Kim. The crowd cheered as the band led into the über-cool “Jealous (I Ain’t With It),” ending with “Needy Girl.”
Just before The Strokes came out fashionably late, the crowd began singing “Happy Birthday” to celebrate lead singer Julian Casablancas’ 48th birthday. A huge ovation began as The Strokes led off with “Lonely in the Future,” with fans singing along with every word. From a new single to an old classic, they followed up with “Hard to Explain.” They played a gritty rendition of “Juicebox,” led off by Steve Schiltz on guitar, filling in temporarily for Nick Valensi.
Uncharacteristically Casablancas talked a lot in between songs. At one point he referenced the Rose Bowl as “soon to be abandoned,” referring to the UCLA Bruins, currently attempting to switch their home games to SoFi Stadium.
At one point he called James Murphy of LCD “the Brett Favre of indie rock,” jokingly referring to how the band has previously come out of retirement. To their credit Casablancas said Just Like Heaven was, “kind of like a better Coachella, to be honest.”
There’s been a lot of talk, some criticism even, on The Strokes’ latest album, “Reality Waits,” and its heavy use of AutoTune. But this is nothing new for them, and they seemed to embrace this new era playing “One Way Trigger,” one of their earliest forays into AutoTune from 2013’s “Comedown Machine.” From their latest effort, “Dine N’Dash” kept the same vibe going, allowing Casablancas to hit new falsetto highs.
After closing their set with “Automatic Stop” and “The Adults Are Talking,” the band returned and Casablancas stated due to “technical difficulties” their encore was being cut from four songs to two.
They reserved one of those to play a new song, “Going to Babble On” for the first time live. The indie rock icons closed Just Like Heaven with the heavenly viral, “Selfless.”
Once again Just Like Heaven proves to be the gold standard for showcasing classic indie of the 2000s, and modern day indie music.
FESTIVAL PHOTO GALLERY
by Highway One Photography
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SID 260826 | TRACI TURNER | EDITOR
