The indie people are out. Watching them gather outside the Empty Bottle on a cool spring evening--thrift-store shirt tails flapping in the wind, ill-groomed hair covering skin that's perhaps a shade more pallow than can be explained by merely staying indoors a lot--I reflect ruefully that, should the world descend into a dystopian ant-state, with a fascist cabal forcing the human population to wear identical jumpsuits, like Joel's on Mystery Science Theater 3000, we'd have no way of knowing who the cool people are.

As much as I hate indie/slacker fashion--as much as I hate any and all fashion--a part of me will never lose the nagging feeling that wearing Dockers really does make me a dork. It's stupid, I know; a sign of a vain, conformist culture (and the equally conformist subcultures that spring up in response to it) that makes me suspect that, if I don't look like these people, I obviously don't value the same things they do...therefore I must not think like them either...do I even like this music? I thought I did! I know I did, at least before I showed up to this overgrown urinal of a nightclub, patronized by people who think wearing ugly clothing constitutes a political statement!

Pause. Breathe...I'm better now. --DW

Oranger

This is one band that wears its influences brightly on their sleeve. Their opening number boasted both an organ riff and some drum fills borrowed from "Strawberry Fields," and you could hardly miss later musical nods to early Beatles, the Who, Chicago and even the Beach Boys--especially on one of their finest tunes, the so-clever-you-wish-you'd-thought-of-it-first "Mike Love Not War."

But Oranger is more than just another shimmering indie pop outfit. No, they marry that pop sensibility to a psychedelic sense of exploration. Many of their tunes sounded less like destinations and more like a musical journey, with the rock engines of bassist Matt Harris and guitarist Mike Drake fueled by the flamboyant and propulsive drum work of Jim Lindsay, a Keith Moon prodigy if ever there was one. As they wound down the set with "Mike Love," they descended into a chaotic mix of dueling solos, but that was the exception, not the rule.

As a live act, much of Oranger's appeal stems from Lindsay's impassioned pounding and antics. Often it would be his explosive fills or simply a howl of "YEEEEEEEAH!!!" from behind the drum kit that would catapault the combo to the next level of intensity. During one tune, he simply remained stuck in a groove while the other players waited to proceed out of the bridge. "I can't stop!" Lindsay exclaimed before finally moving the song forward.

"Does the sound rock?" Harris asked the assembled at one point, referring to the quality of their soundcheck. In the more traditional sense, though, Oranger's sound definitely does rock, weaving together elements of pop's great giants into their own unique approach. --MS

OK Go

One of the few local acts on the Noise Pop bill, OK Go fall somewhere on the continuum between hardcore and radio-friendly New Romantic; their set opener, a cover of Toto's "Hold the Line," was wound up tighter than a watch and delivered with a mix of pop savvy and ferocious rage. Visually you could mistake them for a Bauhaus tribute band: the lead singer in particular, with his jet-black hair and long limbs that look as though they were carved out of soap, has the Goth androgyny thing down cold enough to make Peter Murphy swoon. Their original songs are quite memorable, combining charmingly angst-free subject matter (song titles include "Laserlight Symphony" and "Aren't We Dozy?") with arrangements that often defy logic--harsh, angular rhythms, lots of hardcore-style stop/start, and utterly unclassifiable keyboard parts somehow add up to cohesive pop imbued with real personality and character.

A band like this is the perfect justification for festivals like Noise Pop; you'd never discover them on your own except through blind luck, and life's too short to rely on that. How far they'll make it is beyond me. The Chicago music scene is still haunted by the loss of the irreplaceable Material Issue (a tribute concert for them was held just last month), and OK Go are only one of countless bands hoping to assume a similarly beloved status in the city's heart. (No, I don't count the loathesome Smashing Pumpkins or their resident Prince-wannabe.) All the same, keep an eye on them--they may prove to be one of those investments that pays off in the long term. --DW

Versus

There were moments during Versus' set where it seemed as though the three guitarists--lead and rhythm players Richard and James Baluyut and bass player Fontaine Toups--seemed to disappear into their instruments. The trio spent most of the set busy at conjuring their sonic attack, with little onstage patter. They performed as a powerhouse unit while they barely acknowledged each other's presence on stage. There were a few instances where it seemed almost choreographed--all three would dip low over their guitars in an accidental unison, or thrash forward at the same rhythmic speed.

As they played, it struck me that they were an interesting choice to sandwich between OK Go and Apples in Stereo--while they possessed plenty of the former band's powerhouse edge, they lacked any of the latter band's infectious pop sensibilities. In fact, of the four bands, they were the least "pop," and for that reason, it was hard to remain involved in the set for more than a few songs.

Their sound was simply relentless. Heavy layers of guitar were piled on top of more heavy guitars, often with Toups' fluid bass work providing more melody than the endless power chords or the vocals. They would occasionally back off from their heavier sound to explore open-chord balladry, only to return to the onslaught with the next song. That seemed to be their chief dynamic shift, from overbearing rock to a tense quiet--from loud to soft. Though the tunes did make me want to thrash about my head, Versus' sound ultimately felt too dense to fit within the clear pop overtones of the rest of the evening. Perhaps in a different context, the music would have made a different impression, but they seemed like much of the classic sound and fury that signifies nothing.

At the end of the day, Versus' indecision isn't glowing, like the purer pop of the earlier bands. I have no idea what that means, but I wrote it down during their set, so it must have been important at the time. --MS

Apples in Stereo

It was very late by the time the Apples took the stage, and even drummer Hilary Sidney was yawning--never a good sign, that. But the audience was attentive and expectant, even through an interminable tuning-up that was repeated several times throughout their set. (In a bizarre instance of added value for money, keyboardist Chris McDuffie decorated these tuning sessions with spacy, shapeless noodlings on his Korg synth, effectively turning them into avant-pop sound collages.)

Lead singer and songwriter Robert Schneider, dressed like a skate rat and looking, in Matt Springer's phrase, "like a rock n' roll grad student" (imagine a rounder, cheeky-looking Mike Love, sans chapeau), was ready to begin, launching into "Rainbow," a song as colorful and shimmery as its name. The set featured more new material than that of any other act I saw at the Festival, and the audience had no trouble getting behind it, cheering every opening riff and singing along to words I don't think many of them actually knew. It doesn't hurt that the Apples' stuff is so easy to like, but the band weren't taking any chances, sticking exclusively to the brightest, most upbeat tunes in their already very upbeat catalog.

I say it with all love, but there's no denying a certain?sameness about the Apples' music; even the few songs composed by drummer Sidney (none of which were included here) differ from Schneider's chiefly in that they're sung by a woman. This is a band that never met a minor chord it didn't regard with deep wariness and unease; that fact aside, they can still mix their tempos enough to keep their records interesting, which you probably wouldn't have deduced solely on the evidence of their live act. Surely there's room for "Shiney Sea," the wonderfully slow, moving lament that opens last year's Her Wallpaper Reverie?

Well, maybe not tonight. Being the headliners on a four-act bill, they may have been justified in fearing the crowd would turn on them if they let the tempo slacken for even an instant, and Schneider and guitarist John Hill went through guitar strings like dental floss, keeping the audience on its toes. Just about every near-classic from the band's last few albums was given a fine showing: "Shine a Light," "Strawberryfire" (the one from the commercial), "Seems So," "Tin Pan Alley," "Ruby," and a clutch of new tunes that stand just fine alongside the old ones, such as "The Bird That You Can't See," "Go," and "All Right?But Not Quite." If none of these titles are familiar to you, do try to change that, OK? --DW