Entertainment: Multimedia Belt

There are a few ways for concertgoers to evaluate a set. Did the audience hear all the radio singles it wanted? Did the band throw in some fan favorites and rarities? Or did the band play a mixture of its whole discography in an order that allowed for the momentous highs while never bottoming out so low that the crowd stands still?

Whichever your answer, LCD Soundsystem has perfected a set list so epic, so powerful and so emotional, that the audience is never allowed to come down from its musical high.

The Branford Marsalis Quartet brought the swanky vibes of good old-fashioned Harlem jazz clubs to nearly 1,500 Syracuse University parents and students in the Schine Student Center on Sunday.

The Quartet set the tone of their performance with a track composed the night before the show. The four musicians had been jamming on the hotel piano, then grabbed a taxi to campus and sneaked into one of the music practice rooms. There, they developed a track composed by pianist Joey Calderazzo.

There is a moment in No Child…, the first play of Syracuse Stage’s 38^th season, when main character Nilaja sits alone in a chair, lit by a single spotlight. She ponders the deficiencies of the American education system, which has led to apathetic, unqualified teachers and uninspired, underachieving and even cruel students.

Lupe Fiasco was technically the headlining act of Juice Jam 2010, but when he finally took the stage after Passion Pit’s fanatically received performance, a quarter of the audience hightailed it to the exit. A few minutes later, when the rain began to pour, the audience that jumped along to Passion Pit’s bouncing beats dropped by half, leaving only dripping, diehard fans behind.