Six artists graced the two Juice Jam stages on Sunday afternoon. Despite the rain in the early sets, crowds fought the chilly weather to see SNBRN, BORNS, Matt and KiM, iLoveMakonnen, Oliver Heldens and the headliner Big Sean who closed out the concert.

Big Sean

 

“When I say good, you say music,” Big Sean said at the end of his collaborative hit “Clique”, initiating a call-and-response moment between himself and swarms of students at Juice Jam 2015.

Headliner Big Sean played several of his biggest songs, and his set started to heat up once he performed “Dance (A$$),” the first song out of his set that livened the audience up — possibly because several words of the song are very easy to remember. He then went into several of his older Detroit mixtape songs, which may have lost the audience a bit. However, when he returned to his bigger songs, he won them back. By this point, Juice Jam goers were cold, tired and just wanted to flail while singing the lyrics to the Big Sean songs they knew.

Oliver Heldens

 

Fresh off his appearance at Mad Decent Block Party in Eugene, Oregon on Saturday, the Dutchman reigning in from Rotterdam, Netherlands was number five in the Juice Jam lineup. Going on in front of a tired crowd waiting for the final act, Big Sean, to come on afterwards, Heldens was dealt a hard hand to maintain concentration of.

There’s no doubt Heldens is talented, at only 20 he has the respect of fellow Juice Jam performer SNBRN — who couldn’t believe Heldens knew who he was. But in a live concert setting crowds feed off of on-stage energy and even though they liked him, they loved the roaming photographers more. The energy didn’t start until the cameras panned the crowd. Not to mention, the lines to the food trucks away from the stage grew significantly during his set.

iLoveMakonnen

 

It’s safe to assume that no artists wants their music to cut out between verses, but that’s exactly what happened to iLoveMakonnen who was number four in the lineup. As he started singing the lines to “I Don’t Sell Molly No More,” the music cut off. The crowd started to boo as a girl yelled “What’s going on?” to the hip-hop artist.

But after a split-second of looking around the stage for an answer, iLoveMakonnen, whose real name is Makonnen Sheran, hopped off the front and into the arms of screaming girls and boys. He took selfies, he hugged crowdgoers and he talked to a few lucky ones before getting back to his set. He dealt with the situation gracefully and made the best out of it. Then he came back, with a tease to his hit song “Tuesday.

Matt and Kim

 

Matt and Kim thawed the brisk air at Skytop Field with their enigmatic stage presence, warm sound and Kim’s unbelievable ability to dance and drum. If students didn’t love Matt and Kim before, they sure do now, especially after Kim climbed into the audience and trusted them enough to hold her up as she froze the entire audience in awe by dancing on people’s hands.

With songs like “Daylight,” “Let Go” and “Get It,” Matt and Kim kept everyone at Juice Jam in a good mood and reminded everyone why they were there — to have a fun time. Judging by the constant smiles on their faces, they may or may not have had a better time than everyone else.

BØRNS

 

BØRNS was the first performer to hit the indie stage. His indie-pop sound electrified the crowd as students rocked back and forth to the beat. Clad in a black parka with a fur-hood pulled over an official Juice Jam hat, the Michigan-born artist was stationary during most of his set, strumming his guitar and grabbing the mic with both hands.

The bad weather reached its peak during his performance with a light misty-rain falling over the dancing crowd. In the beginning of his set he experienced some technical difficulties with his mic and the speakers on the right side of the stage were full of static that made members of the crowd cringe in discomfort. The singer ran through a set that included fan-favorites such as “Electric Love” and “10,000 Emerald Pools,” in addition to songs coming off his upcoming album “Dopamine.”

SNBRN

 

SNBRN was the chillest act to grace the Juice Jam stage on Sunday. The night before, he was three hours north in Ottawa, Canada, playing Capital Block Party, and even after flying in on a very small plane, the DJ still managed to make small crowd react to his beats.

The coolest thing about SNBRN was that when he wasn’t performing he almost never left the stage. Whether standing on the side snapping pics of iLoveMakonnen on the indie side stage or dancing under the tent on the leftmost side of the main stage to Big Sean, SNBRN had obvious respect for his fellow artists.

Correction: In a previous version of this article, the story incorrectly stated that iLoveMakonnen switched stages in the middle of his performance. He remained on the indie stage throughout. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on September 13, 2015 at 8:54 pm

Contact: kasotelo@syr.edu