Kevin Bronson on April 17th, 2018

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Bronson’s Day 2: Haim, X Japan, Fleet Foxes, David Byrne, the Bronx, Cherry Glazerr, BØRNS, First Aid Kit, Django Django, Declan McKenna

Someday, Haim’s dorky, potty-mouthed charm — their “we’re-just-three-sisters-from-the-Valley” schtick, their barking Los Angeles boosterism, all that — might get old. But not yet. The pride of Valley Village delivered a typically chatty, hard-hitting set on the main stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival Saturday night, effectively serving as hype women to a crowd who’d been waiting for Beyoncé since … oh … about the winter of 2017.

Haim wore coordinated outfits. They threw their hair; they tossed out some wisecracks. They rocked hard (in fact, they were in the minority as a main-stage act with guitars as the featured instrument). They flew the flag for L.A., welcoming out-of-towners to their “hometown festival” with giddy pride. “I’m having a panic attack,” Danielle Haim said. “I’m wearing a diaper.” Eldest sister Este told a story about coming to Coachella 2008 with her pal Kesha to see Prince and feeling physically ill, thinking at first it was related to her Type 1 diabetes only to find that it was because her friend had given her mushrooms.

It was all in good fun and, it turns out, the perfect lead-in into the spectacle that was Beyoncé, whose performance Coachella veterans agreed supplanted the 2008 Prince show a decade ago as the festival’s best ever.

||| Also: Day 1 coverage, Part 1; Day 1 coverage, Part 2; Day 2 coverage, Part 1

Overall, it was a bustling Saturday (made more bearable by the new festival layout, made unbearable by the 55-minute wait to enter the grounds at 2 p.m.). Should we use italics there? Yes. “I’m here from Florida so I can stand in the dust and sun and miss Declan McKenna,” one college co-ed deadpanned. So some early sets were missed (sorry, Sudan Archives). Here’s how it went from start to finish:

3:15 p.m. — Nineteen-year-old Declan McKenna is wrapping up his set with a jammy finish to “Brazil,” from his debut album “What Do You Think About the Car?,” and even if you heard his fantastic coming-out party at SXSW in 2016, you’d have been hard-pressed to imagine him carrying a tent at a festival. There he is, though, being adorable and being adored. In a perfect world, we’d have started Saturday with Ron Gallo, then Sudan Archives, then McKenna. Maybe next weekend.

3:50 p.m. — Speaking of SXSW, Austin (circa 2012) was the first place we fell for Django Django (and also that year LP, who is performing Sunday at Coachella). Now on their third album, January’s “Marble Skies,” Django Django now have an additional floor tom right up front, and you know what that means, folks. Dance. To their credit, they start their set in the Mojave Tent to a small-ish crowd including a lot of seated shade-seekers. By the end, most everybody is standing and bouncing.

5:05 p.m. — A light early dinner and a sweet iced drink within earshot of First Aid Kit at the Outdoor Theatre. And some plainspoken feminist messages along with those sweet harmonies, so nicely done.

5:45 p.m. — En route to more sweetness, there is time to ponder Simon Vega’s Palm-3 World Station art installation, which is either proof that visitors from outer space have descended on Coachella or what happened that time Fred Sanford dreamed he was an astronaut.

6:05 p.m. — “Thank you, Coachella, you’re too damn nice … and too damn good-looking,” Garrett Borns tells the crowd at the Outdoor Theatre. BÓRNS plays all his hits (even with only two album to his credit, there are plenty), spending the set clambering up and down a wide set of stairs (or bleachers) emblazoned with his name and ending with “Electric Love.” His general geniality was as colorful as his sartorial splendor: above what looked like red gym shorts, he wore a chartreuse jacket over a pink shirt.

6:40 p.m. — A quick walk to the air-conditioned Sonora Tent is rewarded, as Cherry Glazerr rips through a set that includes “Apocalipstick” favorites “Nurse Ratched” and, appropriately, “Told You I’d Be With the Guys.” The latter song is about female solidarity, and there was some of that at Coachella, especially in the two-year-old, rock-heavy Sonora Tent. Cherry Glazerr followed a strong performance from Washington, D.C. punkers Priests, and the Sonora is also the home to the Regrettes, Fazerdaze, Otoboke Beaver and Snail Mail this weekend. Hey, rockists, all come recommended.

7:10 p.m. — After a dash past a Gobi Tent overflowing with Alina Baraz fans (side note: R&B acts are doing well here, so arrive early), “I Zimbra” comes into earshot, and if any festival needs some Dadaist weirdness, it’s any one where Odesza alone will draw 20,000 or so people. The song is from a Talking Heads album that turns 40 next year, and it’s being performed by David Byrne. He recently launched his “American Utopia” tour, named for his first solo ablum in 14 years, and the smart-dressed 65-year-old and his nattily attired backing band cavorted all over the stage during a set heavy on Talking Heads songs. At the start, he sat a table holding a model of a human brain; indeed, nothing about his Outdoor Theatre set was mindless.

8:00 p.m. — After a dash past a sparsely populated Gobi Tent for Benjamin Booker (go figure), the friendly confines of the Sonora come into view. It is rattling with the sounds of veteran hardcore punk band the Bronx, who have played Coachella once (plus as their alter ago, Mariachi El Bronx) and FYF Fest a bunch of times. As punk rockers, they are five albums into a career of being monumentally pissed about things, and they are good at sounding like it. Very few people are here, though. Frontman Matt Caughthran jumps into the crowd to incite a small mosh pit. They send out “White Tar,” a song from 2002, to the OG. And somehow 2006’s “Shitty Future” still rings true. In those days, you didn’t have to look hard to find Coachella’s cauldron of rock rage. Now you just have to head for the Mariott Loyalty Lounge, and then turn right.

8:45 p.m. — Fleet Foxes, assisted by New Tork-based brass quartet the Westerlies, are harmonizing beautifully at the Outdoor Theatre. Seems like a good time sit down and rest the legs. Everybody else has the same idea/ What time does the yoga instructor arrive?

9:00 p.m. — A friend eyeballs the Fleet Foxes crowd and refers to it as “Beyoncé’s low tide.”

9:15 p.m. — Haim launches into their set, which features Alana Haim breaking into a skip-dance onstage as the DJ played Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” and visuals from Paul Thomas Anderson, who succeeded in bringing Ventura Boulevard to the desert.

10:25 p.m. — Like they did at Coachella in 2013 and again in 2015, Alt-J is doing just fine at the Outdoor Theatre, but everyone seems to be 1) looking over their left shoulder toward the main stage, or 2) checking the time.

11:14 p.m. — A massive roar rises from the main stage. The small crowd in the Mojave Tent — which is nearly a half-mile away (correct us if we’re wrong) and in the line of sight of the main stage’s big screens — turns 90 degrees to watch. Stage hands at the Mojave are getting everything in place for Coachella’s biggest reunion of 2017 — the reformation, after 10 years, of a band that’s sold 30 million albums.

11:30 p.m. — In front of a few hundred people, X Japan, the most successful rock band in that country’s history, kicks off a set that would include: 1) video projections; 2) confetti; 3) lasers; 4) pyrotechnics; 5) guest appearances from Guns N’ Roses’ Richard Fortus, Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland and Miya from (also-huge-in-Japan) Mucc; and 6) holograms of two  band members who have passed away, Hide and Taiji, which appear during the finale, “Tears.”  Drummer-pianist Yoshiki plays a crystal piano. When commanded, almost everyone in attendance makes the sign of the “X” with their forearms when the band shouts “We are X!” (That’s also the title of a documentary screening this week at the Grammy Museum.) If you find ’80s hair metal cheesy and squirm at arena-sized power ballads (new song “Kiss the Sky”) played by shirtless pianists, you’re better off seeing Massachusetts rock trio Highly Suspect in the Gobi Tent (that was Coachella’s other Beyoncé counter-programming). For this crowd, though, it means plenty of moist eyes.

And ample time to dry them and catch the last part of Beyoncé.