The Postal Service will headline May’s Just Like Heaven festival in Pasadena, organizers announced Monday, marking a quick return to Southern California for the influential electro-pop group that brought its reunion tour to the Hollywood Bowl for a three-night stand in October.
Other acts on the bill for the one-day fest, set to take place May 18 at Brookside at the Rose Bowl, include Phoenix, Death Cab for Cutie, the War on Drugs, Miike Snow, Passion Pit and Alvvays.
Formed in the early 2000s by Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard and producer Jimmy Tamborello (a.k.a. Dntel) — and featuring Jenny Lewis on background vocals — the Postal Service got back together last year for the first time in a decade to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its platinum-certified debut, “Give Up.” On the road with Death Cab, the band performed the blippy and tuneful “Give Up” from beginning to end while Death Cab ran through all of 2003’s “Transatlanticism”; each group will do the same here.
Just Like Heaven, which debuted in 2019 in Long Beach before moving to the leafy grounds outside the Rose Bowl, is one of an increasing number of music festivals built around specific scenes or eras; others include the emo-themed When We Were Young and the nu-metal-focused Sick New World, both launched recently in Las Vegas, and Cruel World, the goth and new wave show that will bring its third edition to Brookside in May.
Like Cruel World, the indie-nostalgic Just Like Heaven is presented by L.A.-based Goldenvoice, which also puts on the annual Coachella and Stagecoach mega-fests in Indio. This year’s lineup also features such blog-age darlings as Two Door Cinema Club, Phantogram, Metric, Gossip, Tegan and Sara, Washed Out and CSS. In 2023, the festival had the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT, Future Islands and Empire of the Sun, among other acts.
Tickets for Just Like Heaven, which start at $159 and go up to $659 for various VIP packages, will go on sale Friday.