At the end of the exhausting Mayfest day’s proceedings, Block Party is the calm after the storm, in a more controlled indoor environment. You have the choice between seeing your favorite artists by either standing on the floor or just watching from the Carrier Dome stands All in all, it’s a nice way to wrap up a day of insanity with some more typical concert fun.

But this year’s Block Party was, incredibly, just as exhausting as a day of Mayfest.

Unlike last year’s performances by Kygo and 50 Cent, where audience participation was less common and audience members happily took their seats, people were on their feet for almost all of Chance the Rapper’s and The Chainsmokers’ sets. Both of the artists are hugely popular at Syracuse, and the 13,000 or so attendees of this year’s Block Party didn’t let their exhaustion get the best of them.

Sam Maller | Senior Staff Photographer

The show opened with R&B artist Jon Bellion, whose performance was a living example of the concept of “quality over quantity.”

Bellion’s set had a lot, heavily featuring songs from his 2014 album “The Definition” as well as songs on his upcoming album, “The Human Condition.”

Bellion and his backing band — comprised of a drummer, keyboardist, guitarist, background vocalist and beatboxer — have clear talent, and Bellion himself has raw musical ability. But on songs where he had the chance to belt, he fell flat.

In particular, Bellion had a four-song stretch where he played a more traditional hip-hop track over a beatboxed percussion, a hard rock version of the song “Luxury” with blazing electric guitars and heavy rock drum sounds, a very reggae cover of the classic Police song “Roxanne” and downtempo hip-hop a la “808s”-era Kanye.

Sam Maller | Senior Staff Photographer

Bellion, a raw artist still finding his musical voice, has yet to master any of these styles, and at this point in his young career he’d best be off sticking to one or two styles to cover instead of jumping all over the place to show everybody how “versatile” he is.

In Bellion’s defense, as the first act of the night there was the challenge of playing to a crowd slowly filing in, as many of them came to see headlining acts Chance the Rapper and The Chainsmokers.

But regardless, there was a sizable enough crowd on the floor for a cool enough atmosphere if something exciting enough was happening on stage. But Bellion never truly connected with the audience, and his desperate pleas after each song for the crowd to “make some noise” flopped across the board.

In what Bellion lacked in polish and audience passion, however, Chance The Rapper possessed in the form of electricity, both in his relationship with the audience as well as the performance itself.

Chase Guttman | Staff Photographer

The artist, with backing band The Social Experiment, emulated his signature in-studio sound in a live setting.

He performed songs off his solo-mixtapes as well as the album he worked on with the band last year, “Surf”. For even more variety, though, he performed two songs off Kanye West’s latest album “The Life of Pablo”, which he was a primary collaborator with West on.

Chance performed his verse in “Ultralight Beam” and “Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1”, which he wrote the lyrics to.

Chance kept in constant communication with his audience through his set, asking audience members about their thoughts on his two mixtapes (“10 Day” and “Acid Rap”) and playing songs across his many collaborations and other projects. The setlist ended up being mostly from “Acid Rap”, but being his most popular (and best) solo release, nobody had an issue with it.

The artist finally formally professed his love for the audience about midway through his set. “I feel like I have a deep personal connection with you guys,” the artist said. “I’m so glad I finally got to meet you.”

Chase Guttman | Staff Photographer

Chance also pointed out his past with Syracuse University, since he played a Bandersnatch show at Schine Underground in 2013. Upon walking out and performing his opening numbers, he paused to comment on the scale of this massive show at the Carrier Dome compared to the much smaller one just a few years ago. “This is a lot more f***ing people than I thought it was gonna be,” he said. “This is a college show!”

After a cheeky closing song selection of “Chain Smoker,” Chance the Rapper ceded the stage to EDM duo The Chainsmokers, who performed an hourlong set for the final performance of the night.

The group has SU roots as well; not only just in the form of performance history on campus with a headlining spot to their name at Mayfest 2013, but with member Drew Taggart as an alumnus.

Chase Guttman | Staff Photographer

Taggart graduated from the Bandier program in 2012, and acknowledged his Syracuse roots during the show, making it his personal goal to make the show as tailored to his alma mater as possible.

And besides the obvious hits they played — “Roses”, “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Kanye,” to name a few — the pair played a wide range of crowd-friendly remixes, with songs ranging from Walk the Moon and Coldplay to System of a Down and Skrillex. They made sure everyone had a familiar song to get down to.

A lot of people rested all day or for the rest of the show so they’d have enough to get through Chainsmokers’ set.

By the time their set started around 10 p.m, I was already well exhausted from the long day. The people I watched dancing were having the times of their lives, and I got some amazing views of people jumping and singing in unison throughout the performance as members Taggart and Pall continued rallying the crowd on.

Chase Guttman | Staff Photographer

Their formula only interested me for a short while from a musical standpoint, though, and I didn’t have much energy to join the rest of the floor at all.

This year’s Block Party was so exhausting just because there was so much of it. We didn’t get one style of music from Jon Bellion; we got 15. We didn’t get just a few songs from “Acid Rap” in Chance the Rapper’s set; we got 8 of them.

We didn’t get a few straightforward singles and a couple remixes from The Chainsmokers; we got surprise remixes and long mixes of songs and awesome moments of audience participation for over an hour straight. It was all fun to watch, all fascinating to listen to, but, all in all draining.

When it comes to music I like to think I have better patience than most. If something starts out weak I’ll let it play out for a while longer before giving a harsh judgment on it, and if I don’t understand something immediately I’ll give myself time to figure it out.

Chase Guttman | Staff Photographer

University Union gave me everything I could have wanted from a Block Party, with an ambitious artist just beginning to figure out his style, a polished artist eager to show off his mastered craft and a malleable artist able to shape themselves into whatever shape their audience wants from them.

At the end of the day, though, that left no downtime to just sit back and take the music in.

Was Block Party 2016 an awesome experience? Absolutely. But you can bet I’ll take a lengthy break before I go to anything as exhausting as this Friday’s show again.

Published on April 30, 2016 at 12:30 pm