Boston Calling’s expanded 2017 lineup has earned a lot of praise from the music press. The lineup features headliners Tool, Chance the Rapper, and Mumford and Sons. The undercard features The xx, Solange, Mitski, Bon Iver and many more.

Trevor Solomon and his team at Crashline Productions is responsible for the lineup. After it was released, he talked to Allston Pudding about building 2017’s bill.

“You need to be patient. You need to have a different idea about it,” Solomon said. “You need to go into it with a mindset that you don’t know everything. Pretty much, you know nothing and you have to learn on every new festival you book. If you have that mindset and you have that sort of goal in your head, you’ll be okay, you’ll figure it out.”

Prior to working on Boston Calling, Solomon worked at MusicfestNW, which he says skewed more toward indie rock. Before that, the festivals he worked on were multi-venue festivals, spread out around a city.

With coming to Boston, Solomon noted past bookings, while assessing how to build a lineup.

“There were certain things that worked well in previous festivals before I got here, like Brand New, Modest Mouse or Jack Johnson – or Fun., or Childish Gambino is one that worked pretty well,” he said. “It’s tough – with booking, you can say you have an idea and you’re really going to program to have this idea work, but I mean, in fairness, some of it’s luck, some of it’s right time, right place, some of it’s focusing on a couple of different genres.”

With the move to Allston and Harvard’s athletic complex, Solomon noted a particular point of emphasis for his team.

“Cohesion, per day and for the festival, was an important thing to really focus on. That’s something that we did really try to pinpoint.”

Solomon also shined a light on the collaboration between his team and curators.

“Aaron [Dessner of the band The National and festival curator] is involved in every aspect and every decision,” Solomon said. “A perfect example is Xylouris White. He knew of them because he worked with them on the Grateful Dead project that he did last year.”

MSG + BC

One additional wrinkle to this year’s lineup is that it is the first festival with the backing of Madison Square Garden Live, which has a controlling stake in the festival.

Of MSG and Crash Line’s collaboration, Solomon said: “They bring expertise, they have a great booking team. They have a great executive team over there. And they have a lot of people who have been in the industry for a long time.

“They don’t just book Madison Square Garden. They have Chicago Theatre, they have The Forum in LA, they have Radio City. I think they have The Beacon also. So they have these rooms. If I go to them and say I want to book Tool, they’ll be like ‘they did great in this venue in this city, they’re a really strong arena band and you should definitely look at them.'”

Solomon continued: “I’ve been doing this for a while and other people in this group have been doing this for a while, but [MSG has] been doing this for a very long while. And they’re really tied in with the music community and they know what is happening out there and they’re a really good resource for that.”

Credit: Greg M. Cooper-Harvard University

Lineup FOMO

Although the lineup is expanded, there are always some artists that, for whatever reason, don’t work out.

“I had a top 10 list of bands that I love this year, and I would say there’s probably eight of those playing this festival,” Solomon said.

Due to the realities of west coast touring, Catfish and the Bottlemen wouldn’t be able to play. Solomon is a big fan of Frankie Cosmos, but it didn’t work out that the festival could book her.

Then, there’s Radiohead, a band that is likely top-of-mind for most festival bookers.

“I love Radiohead. They made a great record, but that’s alright. That’s why you have other years to come down the road and you hope that you get all these bands eventually.”

Last year’s lineup featured a diverse group of headliners, with two female headliners in Sia and Robyn (the festival had never had a female headliner before 2016). This year features no female headliners. Despite this, Solomon said “[they] have a good female presence this year at the festival.”

“Of course you want to have a female presence,” Solomon said. “There are a lot of awesome female artists out there, and you want to have them on your festival. Sometimes they’re not headliners and sometimes they are.”

Calling Shots

When asked about who he was most excited to see at the festival, Solomon was diplomatic at first.

“I put something into every single booking,” he said. “There’s not a band I’m not excited to see.”

Then he started to list highlights:

“I haven’t seen Cousin Stizz live so I’m curious to see that. I’ve been a fan of Buffalo Tom since 1990, so that’s like a sucker pick for me. Piebald, also. I’m an old man, so I love that stuff.

“Majid Jordan is a new artist I’m curious about. Brandi Carlile. Solange I’ve never seen live, so I’m excited about that.”

“I’m very excited to see the crowd reaction to The 1975,” he continued. “Tool and Chance [the Rapper] I’ve never seen live. Chance, I’m a champion of. I think what he’s doing, not just musically, but socially, I think he’s a special person in this world and he’s doing something that’s going to resonate for years to come.”

Solomon noted Bon Iver’s new album and frontman’s ties to Boston Calling through the Eaux Claires music festival in Wisconsin.

Other highlights of Solomon’s: Tkay Maidza, Mondo Cozmo, Modern Baseball and Car Seat Headrest.

Looking ahead to 2018, Solomon said he had started the search to fill out the bill.

“Somebody said to me Friday night, ‘You’re fucked. How the hell are you going to repeat this?’ That’s why you get up in the morning.”