Familiar faces, few rookies populate Summer Jam

The annual JAM’N 94.5 Summer Jam concert is typically a reliable barometer of current mainstream tastes in hip-hop and R&B. In this year’s case, fans stuck with familiar ones.
In fact, only a minority of performers — New Boyz, Waka Flocka Flame, and Big Sean — could claim to be new artists in a lineup that consisted of mostly veteran acts and established stars. While the rookies used their opportunities well, the several thousand people who filled the Comcast Center in Mansfield on a sunny, pleasant Saturday afternoon were there mostly to show loyalty to artists who have stayed in regular rotation at the station for the last half-decade, and for those artists to thank the fans for keeping them there.

The doors opened at 4, but the long lines in the parking lot, which was packed with young people tailgating and a steady stream of rented party buses and limos, were still crawling by the time Sean Garrett opened the show at around 6.

Of the new acts, the presence of Kanye West protege Big Sean was most impressive, considering he has yet to drop an official album. The Detroit rapper made the most of his 15-minute set, performing a few standout tracks from his mix tapes before closing with his lead single, “My Last.’’ Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame, who has the intimidating build of a bruising NBA forward, followed, appropriately attacking his rumbling, bass-heavy hits “Hard in the Paint’’ and “No Hands’’ with the expected reckless abandon.

Lupe Fiasco was the only performer on the bill who could bridge the increasingly disparate audiences for underground and mainstream hip-hop, but his disappointing set leaned heavily on tepid pop-friendly fare from his recent album “Lasers,’’ including “The Show Goes On’’ and “I Don’t Wanna Care Right Now.’’ Meanwhile, the New Boyz were the night’s most opportunistic act. The skinny jeans-wearing California kids, who had a viral hit with “You’re a Jerk’’ in 2009, performed with the enthusiasm and confidence of a group fighting to win each individual new fan, and likely succeeded in leaving with a few more.

R&B crooner Jeremih pumped up the sex appeal with his set, much to the delight of the mostly female crowd who swooned to his hit “Birthday Sex,’’ for which he invited a girl from the crowd to come sit on his lap (she happily obliged) as he sang. But that was just a warm-up for the night’s biggest star, Chris Brown. The piercing screams of a few thousand women signaled his appearance as he swaggered onstage with a crew of dancers and set himself the task of topping Jeremih for sheer sexual energy. That meant inviting yet another young girl to participate in a PG-rated lap dance to “Take You Down’’ while she sat in a chair on stage. Brown, who removed his shirt to a deafening collective shriek from the crowd, seemed genuinely appreciative of the fans’ response and did his best to please them, showing off his slick dance moves to a medley of current radio hits and jumping on a speaker to lead the fist-pumping on LMFAO’s obnoxious club staple “Shots.’’ Brown closed out with his current singles: the Euro-club flavored hit “Yeah 3x’’ and “Look at Me Now,’’ on which he admirably attempted to rap Busta Rhymes’s rapid-fire verse.

If anything, he was guilty of making the show peak slightly early, as closing acts T-Pain and Fabolous felt slightly overlooked after the crowd’s enthusiasm for Brown. T-Pain’s auto-tune vocal gimmick has been overused to the point of parody, but, to his credit, the Tallahassee-born singer performed mostly without it and didn’t miss a beat. Acutely self-aware of his image, he poked fun at his weight while busting out some surprisingly agile dance moves and even beat boxing in between songs. He ran through booze-fueled hits like “Blame It (on the Alcohol),’’ “Buy You a Drink’’ and “Bartender,’’ then brought out surprise guest DJ Khaled and his artist Ace Hood to knock out the bombastic anthems “All I Do Is Win’’ and “Welcome to My Hood.’’ After exceeding his allotted time, T-Pain attempted to finish up with one more song but had his mike cut off, upon which he refused to leave the stage in protest as the crew prepared for the next act.

After the delay, Fabolous, backed by a full band and DJ, finished well, but might have been better off with an earlier time slot. He performed older hits like “Holla Back,’’ and “Superwoman,’’ plus led a tribute to recently deceased collaborator Nate Dogg, but the crowd’s energy seemed to be waning as evening turned to chilly night.