Fabulosity knew no bounds where these glam-emo guys were concerned. So, when it was announced last year that the band was discontinuing its circus-themed shows and dispensing with its carnival-barking clothes, you had to wonder what the raging emo band would do for pageantry.

It even lost its band name's oddly placed exclamation point. But rather than panic at what Panic at the Disco might do for an encore, the members hit the ground running.

They snuck songs onto NBC's hit series Heroes, showed up on Saturday Night Live, made a record (Pretty. Odd.) that found its eccentric Cure-like flourishes channeled into blunt Beatles-ish songs, and sold out Festival Pier at Penn's Landing on Friday to a crowd of rain-soaked kids.

If they could convince wet teenagers of their pop prowess, they didn't need waistcoats and girls dancing in cages.

Guitarist/singer Brendon Urie and Co. allowed tart melodies and quirky harmonies to ring with greater spunky purity than in the past. There was yodeling and yelping through the galloping rhythms of "Camisado" and the slashing guitars in the new "Go On." But it was more of a trembling lower vocal range that Urie used during those moments. The wiggy bridges and rushed rock-outs of "We're So Starving" and "Nine in the Afternoon," featured floridly plinking pianos rather than guitars to guide their chirpiest melodies.

This was a more charming streamlined Panic at work; polite and teasing. It turned "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" into a noirish twinkle - quickening it when least expected, slowing it when Urie whispered "faster." It made their lousy songs wispy and sly in a Magical Mystery Tour way. And there were surprise fireworks halfway through the set.

The show's openers were equally explosive. Anyone digging Flaming Lips' "She Don't Use Jelly" would have loved Motion City Soundtrack. Tougher than its records, Justin Pierre's cracked pop Soundtrack was thrilling in its musical economy.

So was Phantom Planet. Like the headliner, singer/guitarist Alex Greenwald's Planet winnowed its dramas into blunt pop, with thumping rhythms and scratchy guitars serving as backdrop for nervous melodies and creamy California harmonies on "Raise the Dead" and "Do the Panic."