Update: Sept. 11 at 3:16 a.m.

At the 14th annual Juice Jam festival, five artists took the stage Sunday afternoon. Jeremy Zucker, Smallpools, MØ, Ugly God and the festival’s closer, Diplo, graced the crowd with their popular and new tracks.

Diplo

Alexandra Moreo | Photo Editor

The headliner for this year’s Juice Jam opened with a remix of “m.A.A.D. City” by Kendrick Lamar to get the crowd ready for his long-awaited set. He followed with remixes of other well-known songs and transitioned into his own work — including songs he produced as Jack Ü, a duo group with fellow DJ Skrillex. He performed chart-toppers such as “Febreze,” “Where Are Ü Now” and “Take Ü There.”

The DJ surpassed the crowd’s high expectations. The performance included crowd surfers, confetti and, in classic rave-worthy fashion, the set wasn’t complete without strobe lights and heavy bass.

Ugly God

Alexandra Moreo | Photo Editor

The fourth performer of the day, Ugly God, took the smaller side stage. The majority of the crowd didn’t seem to know most of his songs, but when Ugly God started performing “Water,” everyone started to rap along.

Almost every one of Ugly God’s songs has the phrase, “thanks Ugly God,” which he continued to ask the crowd to repeat every song. He took a pause from rapping to express his love for Pokemon, listing some of his favorites and asking the crowd for some of theirs. Although it was slightly confusing to the audience, Ugly God’s rap performance was a good transition to the headliner, Diplo.

MØ

Paul Schlesinger | Asst. Photo Editor

To start the set off, MØ’s DJs played well-known music to attract the crowds. The crowd was hyped for MØ, with dozens of girls getting on people’s shoulders and plenty of people shouting along to the words. MØ mixed up her own music by adding in a cover of Justin Bieber’s “Cold Water,” followed by her original, “Nights With You,” which was released in June. The song was followed by “Don’t Leave,” another crowd favorite.

Her performance was met with a positive response — everyone danced and sang along to the catchy tunes — and by the end of the first few songs, the crowd had culminated in front of the stage. MØ finished with “Lean On,” the song that put her on the musical radar.

Smallpools

Sabrina Koenig | Asst. Photo Editor

The Los Angeles-based indie rock band took the stage with one of their first songs “Over and Over.” Their set was a mix of their old songs from their original self-titled EP and their newly released, “THE SCIENCE OF LETTING GO.”

In the middle of their set, the sound system stopped working, but the show went on. In an effort to hype up the crowd, Smallpools’ drummer kept playing to the beat of the chant “drum solo.”

The system picked up again as the band was about to perform without the extensive sound. The crowd was enjoying the band’s energy as the band closed out with their most popular song, “Dreaming.”

Jeremy Zucker

Sabrina Koenig | Asst. Photo Editor

The indie electronica artist, Jeremy Zucker, started his set with “Talk is Overrated,” an original song that was remixed by well-known DJ Blackbear. Although the crowd wasn’t too full, those who were there swayed to the beats Zucker created himself. The artist made his way into the crowd multiple times to dance with concertgoers.

For his second to last performance, Zucker brought Daniel James and Benjamin O into the crowd to rap to his original song, “‘Bout It.” Although the audience wasn’t packed for the beginning of Juice Jam, Zucker started off the day on the right note and hyped up the crowd for the rest of the performers.

Published on September 11, 2017 at 12:04 am

Contact Danielle: daclough@syr.edu