5 Seconds of Summer: Pop with power at the Susq

The last time we saw 5 Seconds of Summer, the Australian power-pop band played up the pop side of that equation when they opened for One Direction in August 2014. 5SOS (drummer Ashton Irwin, bassist Calum Hood, and guitarists Luke Hemmings and Michael Clifford) had a large stage to play on and showed off harmonic boy-band luster to go with a spunky attitude and surprisingly taut musicianship.

On Friday, 5SOS sold out Camden's Susquehanna Bank Center. Now on a smaller stage, they played up the power side, with a punky, crunching guitar sound that also managed to be sugar-sweet. That is what the best power-pop is: Beatles at their grungiest, Replacements, Raspberries, early XTC, Nazz, Weezer. If contagiously melodic bubblegum with a fuzztone edge defines power-pop, 5SOS is power-pop.

Dark-haired, wiggly eyebrowed bassist Hood seemed like the front man. He led the vocals - the slowed-down "Amnesia"; the raving "Permanent Vacation" - and did the most talking to the giddy crowd. He made sprightly tunes like "Don't Stop" and "Heartache on the Big Screen" sprightlier with his grin, and he played up his dance-hall lilt on the reggae-rock of "Beside You." You also got the feeling Hood could be the rowdiest member (see his recent semiclothed Snapchat pics) and the breakout star if 5SOS ever break up.

À la One Direction, each member took a shot at vocals, with dusty-blond Hemmings leading the high-voiced charge on "Wrapped Around Your Finger," spike-haired guitarist Clifford using his tough-but-tender tones on "Jet Black Heart," and drummer Irwin clipping off a piece of "What I Like About You." The interesting thing about that last song, a Romantics cover, is that it didn't come across as stagy. There was an unplanned (I think, I hope) raggedness, discord, even, with its first bars sounding like the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage."

Another tune that sounded like two songs at once was the jaunty "She's Kinda Hot," a sonic mash-up of My Chemical Romance's "Teenagers," and the Lennon-McCartney smash "Day Tripper." No matter what sounded like what else, these four guys - a boy-band playing live and hard - have a long future before them if they stay as frenetic and melodic as they did on Friday.