With Beyoncé headlining, Day 2 of Coachella’s second weekend was naturally stacked with talent. Between countless spellbinding performances, we somehow found time to gather insights from a few top-tier acts.

Chloe x Halle (the Queen Bee’s recent protegees, who just released their debut album The Kids Are Alright on Bey’s imprint Parkwood, California), longtime L.A. punks the Bronx (touring behind 2017 album V), Washington, D.C. punk/post-punk upstarts Priests (supporting debut full-length Nothing Feels Natural) and England's Django Django (who released third album Marble Skies in January) all sat down with us to discuss fest setlist strategy, how things went down at Coachella and their experiences at other music festivals.

Chloe x Halle

Setlist: Typically when you’re making a setlist for a festival, it’s a bit different than for a club show, so how do y’all approach putting together a fest set list?

Halle: I feel like the main important part of a festival show is the energy, and we like to formulate our songs in an order that flows really well and never loses energy or dies down. And I feel like we kinda do that with all of our shows in a way.

Chloe: And for this show in particular, for Coachella, we were so excited, because it was the first the we would be able to perform our new album songs in their entirety. Last weekend we did it, and this weekend we did, and it was a process of preparing because we had never played these songs live before, and just arranging them together to figure out what sounds great sonically and what has the most energy so people don’t get bored.

Even with the stuff that you had played before, did you kinda switch things around a little bit to curate that energy?

Halle: Yeah we always love switching things around, and mashing things up and mixing them together because we never really like to do the same thing over and over again, because it’s excitement for us, you know? So we always like switching it up.

As sisters, does one of you always spearhead that process, or do you have equal input?

Halle: I would have to say my sister definitely takes the lead. She’s the older sister. It’s funny, because in our business, with music, she definitely takes the lead, and in everyday life, I’m like the picker-upper – I’m like the mom. But she definitely takes the lead in that way. She’s so tech-savvy and does great arrangements and so I kind of just give notes and stuff.

Chloe: The thing with Halle is her notes are like so valuable and it’ll be like, ‘That’s what was missing!’ – it’s a good partnership.

What would say is your best crowd-pleaser song, or was in your Coachella set lists?

Chloe: I have to say “Everywhere” and “Happy Without Me.”

Halle: “Everywhere” is definitely one …

Chloe: … and “The Kids Are Alright.”

How would you describe the vibe of those songs?

Halle: “Everywhere” is a song that’s high-energy and about money – we’re like “I got money everywhere” – and we wrote that songs as basically just manifesting wealth into all aspects of your life, whether it’s prosperity or money or whatever. So that one people like to sing “I got money everywhere,” so that is really cool. And then …

Chloe: “Happy Without Me” is a special song to us. It’s one of our favorites on the album and it’s everyone else’s favorite on the album as well and we always close the show out with that one – we did for Coachella. And just hearing them sing it and vibing to the song has really just made my day and brightened up my soul.

That leads to my next question, which is how would you measure the success of a festival set list?

Chloe: I feel like we have a really good support system in our family and our mom, dad and little brother aren’t afraid to tell us if something’s good or not, and our music director Derek is really awesome. So we have a really cool team around us, and if my sister and I don’t feel it inside, then we’ll kinda be like, “Oh …,” but when we see people’s faces singing the songs, it just brightens up our spirits and we’ll be like, ‘That was a good show.’ No matter what happened, no matter if something went wrong, we had fun and we’re just grateful to have special beings loving our music.

Was this your first music festival?

Halle: Yes, this was our first!

So you’re just now getting a sense of what makes a festival setlist successful – awesome. Who were you excited to share this bill with?

Halle: Oh my goodness… our mentor Beyoncé. We were so excited to see her show last weekend. We saw her show and were mind-blown. We had a little bit of an idea about what was gonna happen, but it was just mind-blowing. We saw Vince Staples – he was really good. SZA – we love her.

Chloe: Moses Sumney, the Weeknd, Brockhampton …

Halle: We’re gonna see our friends Ibeyi – I love them so much.

Did you feel any extra pressure to curate something special for Beychella, to create something that would live up to the shot that Beyoncé gave you?

Chloe: Yeah, you know, whenever we do anything, we always strive to put our best foot forward no matter what, so I feel like my sister pushes me and I push her and our family helps push us as well and we just do our best every time.

The Bronx (vocalist Matt Caughthran)

Setlist: You guys have played Coachella before, yeah?

Matt: Yeah, as the mariachi band, in 2011. S

o this is a little bit different as your punk rock incarnation – how do you approach putting together as festival set list as The Bronx?

Matt: For festivals in general, you always try to jam it with your best tunes, obviously. And you always try to have moments in there that allow for a little separation, a little something in there for everybody. As much as we are just a rock and roll band and a punk rock band, we do have songs that touch different aspects of the genre, so we try to expand it and make it something that’s not just straightforward.

You mean kinda slow it down a little bit?

Matt: Yeah, exactly. Dynamics, you know?

Of course you want to keep the energy high because attention is maybe more likely to wander at a festival. Then how would you measure the success of a festival set?

Matt: I think it’s just like anything else. If the audience is stoked, you know it right away. It’s the same as a club show in that respect – it’s all an energy thing between the band and the audience.

Yeah, though you can’t just assume that someone staring at you stock-still isn’t having a good time, because they might just be processing the music and still cheer like crazy afterward.

Matt: Yeah, never judge a book by its cover – exactly.

What would you say is your number one crowd-pleaser at a festival?

Matt: It’s probably gonna be “Heart Attack American,” our number one stunner when it comes to festivals.

What happens during that song?

Matt: People that are usually kind of calm, cool and collected … they seem to blow off some steam. That’s the song that gets ‘em.

Who have you been excited to share the bill with at this Coachella?

Matt: Well, Beyoncé – everyone’s got love for Beyoncé. We’re on a stage with the Oh Sees, who are an awesome band. Let’s see … David Byrne, Nile Rogers – there’s so many awesome bands here all weekend. Portugal. The Man, King Krule – there’s a lot of stuff happening all over the place, so it’s a great festival to be a part of.

Final question: do y’all remember your first festival experience as a band?

Matt: What was it …? Reading and Leeds. It was nerve-racking as hell. Coachella’s got a pretty awesome crowd, but over in England, especially probably 12 years ago or something like that, it was super amazing. Festival fans over in Europe and especially at Reading and Leeds with all the history – they’re going for it from start to finish, so it’s a great experience.

Priests (guitarist GL Jaguar, drummer Daniele Daniele, vocalist Katie Alice Greer)

Setlist: How was Weekend One and how are you feeling going into this weekend’s performance?

Daniele: Good! I think I was a lot more nervous before the first weekend than I am now. Also, we’re playing an indoor stage – the Sonora stage – so at first I was like, ‘Oh god, we’re gonna be on this huge outdoor stage,’ and the indoor was still big but a lot lower area-wise, so I was like, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have been that nervous – this is no different than playing a really big club.’

GL: We’ve definitely done bigger stages with bigger audiences, too.

Daniele: It wasn’t quite as nerve-racking as I thought it would be, which was nice, so now we’re all kind of in party mode – let’s have a good time this weekend!

GL: First weekend was totally like a culture shock, too. I’ve never experienced anything like this, but now I know what I was getting into, so it’s aight.

Weekend Two is always more relaxed – it tends to be more of the dedicated music fans.

Daniele: That’s what I heard. It’s like the second weekend is more for the fans.

GL: It was very ‘industry’ last weekend, too.

Daniele: And it is weird that we’re here because last year was our really big press cycle for the album release, and we’re still waiting to record the next one. So we probably won’t be on the next press cycle until next year. So it is kind of weird that we’re here.

Well Sonora tent has been a cool aspect of Coachella since they introduced it last year – it has been this haven for punk rock and DIY stuff, which there are lot of roots for in Southern California and with Goldenvoice.

Daniele: Yeah, some of our friends played here last year, so it was cool to get the skinny from them.

How do you guys approach putting together a festival setlist versus a club show, or is it any different for you?

GL: One thing we think about it how long we’re gonna play. Sometimes we like to break it up into blocks as far as what sounds good together and as far as tuning goes.

Daniele: I feel like we have a moody block, so we might have to cut that short if you have a distracted audience like a festival audience. But it actually is a lot easier than we thought because we’re indoors, so people have to come in to see you, so you tend to be more the center of attention. Whereas when I was watching SZA and Vince Staples, they’re really competing for people’s attention because the audio and visual field around you is really distracting.

For you guys, is it one person who puts together the setlist or is it pretty democratic?

Daniele: Pretty democratic, and we’ve been touring with a couple different bassists this year because our former bassist is off promoting his other band (Flasher) and doing that really hard because they have a record coming out soon, so a lot of it too is that usually, we’re really spontaneous about the set, but because we’re playing with a lot of new people I think we it more figured out.

GL: Yeah, we used to just be able to start making some noises and we’d be like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re playing that song now.’

How would measure the success of a festival set?

GL: I think it’s different for all of us. I think some of us definitely jive better on the audience, so if they’re really into it, some of us will get more roped in, and then we’ll feel like we had a better set because the audience reaction was good. But then others of us would feel like we had a better set because we played better – it’s different for every person.

Daniele: I close my eyes when I play so I don’t know what the audience does, so for me it’s always about how did I play, and how did they play and how does it sound together. It’s really personal. But then if you talk to our booking agent or our manager, for them it’s like ‘How much press did you get after you played?’ – that’s the mark of a good set for them.

GL: And everyone’s so self-critical, too. It’s like, ‘Ah, I did this thing’ and someone else is like, “That was one of the best sets I’ve seen you play!’

Yeah, you’re always your own worst critic, but chances are nobody noticed if you fucked up.

Daniele: And other times I’ll feel like I played great and be so stoked and then Katie will be like ‘I wasn’t getting anything from that audience – that was horrible.’ That’s good, though, because it’s nice when I’m feeling down on myself and someone else had a good time during the set, it shows that it takes all of us – everyone can have on-nights or off-nights and it’s never gonna ruin the thing.

GL: It’s hard because it’s not like a math equation – there are so many variables. The sounds, for me, is a big thing, too. If you can’t hear yourself and it sounds like garbage, it’s like …

Daniele: Yeah, this is our first time ever hiring a sound person, and we’ll actually be taking one out on our next tour.

GL: Very exciting.

Daniele: So yeah, it’s definitely a new thing for us, and it’s just nice because you can hear everything. People who aren’t familiar with us are gonna mix things wrong, and so you have to have a person who’s gonna know ahead of time what you want, so it’s gonna sound for the audience the way you want.

What was the first festival you played as band and what was that like?

Daniele: Well, we’d played a bunch in Europe …

GL: It was Hopscotch [in Atlanta]. That was fun. They treated us really well. They fed us well and everyone was really hospitable.

So a good introduction to being on a fest bill.

GL: Yeah, we saw some other cool bands, too. We played with St. Vincent on that one, we saw Spoon …

[Katie joins the interview late, so before wrapping up, we ask who she was excited to share the bill with]:

Katie: Damn … more like who am I not excited to share the bill with. We did come specially last night to see St. Vincent, Vince Staples and SZA – I was really stoked about that. We have not been able to watch Nile Rodgers and Chic at all, which has been really heartbreaking. But someone who I didn’t know about who I saw was Buscabulla – they were really great.

Django Django (synthesizer operator Tommy Grace and drummer Dave Maclean)

How was Weekend One and how did Weekend Two compare?

Tommy: I’d say definitely today was better. It was mainly because we were straight off the plane for the first weekend and we were just jetlaggy. It was good, but today I just felt more energy from myself and the rest of the band and from the crowd as well – I felt like the crowd was a bit more animated.

It’s your first Coachella – did it feel different from playing other festivals?

Dave: The heat, I think I’m not that used to. Even the ones in Europe that we did … the ones in Spain were not quite this intense heat. It wasn’t so hot last time, but today, I definitely didn’t conserve my energy. I just went for it and by the third song I was like, ‘Whoa.’ Tommy: I guess we’ve normally got an evening set, so it’s cooler.

How do you approach putting together a festival set list?

Dave: We just kind of try and get the juiciest tracks in and try the most upbeat ones, the fastest ones. In a longer set you need the dips, the lulls, but if you’ve only got half an hour or forty-five minutes, you don’t really need that. You might have one … You can see the pockets of fans singing and jumping – they know the songs – but it’s definitely not a partisan crowd. It’s definitely a new audience so you’ve got to try and win them over – just go for it, really.

You guys mentioned that it’s Tommy normally putting the sets together?

Tommy: No, it’s more on a technical level it goes through me because I’m doing a lot of the queues and starts. So I need to sort all that, but normally we talk about it quite a lot, and then we set out from there. But about three-quarters of the set we run on track, so we need to sort of know what we’re doing – we can’t really deviate once we start playing. Today was different from first weekend, slightly – we made a wee change. But that’s kind of because we ran out of time on the first weekend. It’ll be interesting to see what Beyoncé does tonight, like whether she deviates from what is obviously a legendary set.

How would you measure the success of a festival set list?

Dave: I think you can sense how it went. It’s kinda hard to judge in the daytime in a really hot tent, because people are diggin’ it, but it’s too hot to go mad. So it just depends. Also, maybe it’s a European thing – definitely a British thing – people over there drink a lot more at festivals.

Well, they’ve got the beer garden setup here, so it’s a bit limited.

Dave: If that was Britain, everyone would have a big bottle of something, and they’d all be shit-faced by now, so it’s almost harder here because you’ve gotta try even harder to impress [the audience].

Tommy: Certainly for us, when we’re trying to make the audience dance and just go a bit stupid, it does help to be a little bit, you know, boozy.

So I think what I’m gathering from you guys is that the measure of success if that you have people moving, feeling inspired by the music, whether or not that’s influenced by alcohol.

Tommy: It definitely is, and how I feel and the crowd’s reaction are normally hand in hand. I’ll get bummed if the crowd is a but down or pretty much always the same.

Who are you most excited to share this festival bill with?

Tommy: I’d say Beyoncé and the Oh Sees …

Dave: Oh, it’s got to be Beyoncé. I mean, all the papers back home were saying it was a historic moment, kind of like when Madonna peaked or Michael Jackson peaked. Declan McKenna was on before us, and he’s on our label in France, so caught a bit of him both times – he’s fun.

Tommy: I’m a massive Nile Rodgers fan, so I caught him both times. He’s totally incredible. Dave: David Byrne as well … I know that Moodymann is here. I think there’d be loads of DJs here that I’d love but didn’t get to see.

Do you remember your first festival experience as a band?

Tommy: We played really early at Glastonbury. About three Glastonburys we played unofficially, just a friend’s tent party thing, and the little bars late at night. And then we jumped right up to playing second headline at the Park stage, which was just massive, and we were like ‘Oh my god, there’s 40,000 people.’ So I’ll always remember playing that festival.

Dave: I remember this kind of dodgy festival … the Big Day Oot, which was a Scottish parody of the Big Day Out. It rained … and it was one of the biggest paying gigs we’d had at the time, but it was just a total wash out.

Tommy: There were three people there … and they were like nine-year-old kids. I actually kind of enjoyed that day, to be honest. Vinny’s mom saw us for the first time and was like, ‘You quit architecture for this?!’ But weirdly, the same day we signed off a huge Coca-Cola advert in Mexico, so it was like our first big advertising sink. And just remember doing this Coke ad and then playing to these three children.

Was that before Glastonbury?

Tommy: Yeah, this was like our fourth-ever gig.

So that is your first festival gig!

Dave: “Festival” is pushing it.