This weekend, a paradisal wave of nostalgia will break upon Pasadena, CA, as Just Like Heaven returns for another year! Count us ready to bask in the ever-comforting and euphoric afterglow of the music that soundtracked our adolescence and teenage years. With minimal time conflicts and plenty of big names to enjoy, we’ve compiled a list of some unmissable sets taking place earlier in the day.

Produced by Sandra B. Olinger, Written by Steven Ward

All bands are listed in chronological order by set time.

CSS

We’re calling it right now — Brazilian band CSS will be the must-see early set at Just Like Heaven this year. When they released their self-titled debut LP Cansei de Ser Sexy (2005), they enthralled listeners worldwide with their unfiltered but giddy electro-rock. Their snarky lyricism wraps itself around the disparate grooves that texture their hook-filled creations. La Liberación (2011) and Planta (2013) are necessary listening for anyone who wants to get a taste of the sublimely frantic heights their seamless indietronica fluctuations reach. Ending their hiatus with two new singles — “Coocoocrazy” and “Et,” featuring Karen Jonz — CSS is making its return, brandishing a sonically heavier but still entrancing sound.

CSS can be found treating early arrivers to their enchantingly weird and spacey creations at the Orion Stage from 1:25-2pm.

Gossip

Another hotly-anticipated live reunion will engulf the festival when rapturous indie-rock heroes Gossip assemble for the first time in over a decade. If you haven’t already, now’s the time to dive headfirst into their new record, Real Power, and fall hopelessly in love with the melodically slick and stirring anthems that gush from within. Catch us in the crowd trying but failing to belt out the same electrifying howls elicited by vocalist Beth Ditto, too mesmerized by the elusively groovy riffs and drums being laid down by Brace Paine and Hannah Blilie. Those looking for an irresistible barn-burner of a performance need look no further than this ecstatic trio.

See Gossip make their glorious return during their set at the Orion Stage from 2:05-2:40pm.

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Sleigh Bells

Listening and discovering Treats, the 2011 debut album Sleigh Bells, always felt like a formative revelation. Pairing electro-grinding cacophony with weightlessly gleaming pop hooks — as on “Infinity Guitars” and “Rill Rill” — created this mind-breaking dissonance that to this day feels startlingly audacious. If you’re looking to get yourself rocked back to your adolescence with bombastic fury you couldn’t ask for a band better equipped sonically. When their fifth studio album, Texas, arrived a few years ago in 2021, bristling with scorching anthems, it assuredly returned the duo to their noise pop throne.

Sleigh Bells will unleash their blistering but galvanizing catalog at the Orion Stage from 2:45-3:25pm.

Tegan and Sara

Twin sisters Tegan and Sara have been beloved indie-pop darlings since the early 2000s. Whether you became enamored with the raw alt-rock confessionals found inside their seminal and widely celebrated fifth studio album, The Con, or stumbled upon their shimmering pop outings Heartthrob and Love You to Death, their entire discography is overflowing with tracks that glitter with nostalgia. Anyone lucky enough to have seen the pair live knows their stratospheric vocals are supremely potent — be they hitched to the tumbling piano melody of “Back In Your Head” or beaming alongside the blasting synths in “Closer.”

Catch Tegan and Sara as they spellbind fans on the Orion Stage from 3:30-4:10pm.

Phantogram

Phantogram is another timeless duo who’ve continued to evolve and push the limits of their sound since their emergence a decade ago. They took the world by storm with the Voices (2010) and Eyelid Movies (2014), introducing listeners to their ethereal but concussive fusion of sleek electro-rock and trip-hop. Since then they’ve released two more albums and also collaborated with Big Boi of Outkast to create an EP as Big Grams. Spend your afternoon drifting to Sarah Barthel‘s heady transmissions as they cut through the flood of jagged dream pop conjured by her and Josh Carter. Of all the raucous collisions of electronica and rock taking place at Just Like Heaven this year — you absolutely cannot miss out on these two.

Phantogram will appear on the Orion Stage from 4:15-4:40pm.

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