Ponys star as things get wiggy at the Echo

Of the three highly disparate bands that played the Echo on Saturday night, Chicago’s the Ponys were the only one whose members didn’t wear fright wigs. This was probably for the best, as the group’s sneakily melodic garage-pop was more about precision than striking poses anyhow. But opening sets from indie starlet turned art-addled folkie Jena Malone and standoffish psych-punk outfit Deerhunter raised the bar for any act hoisting a freak flag or a costume change in 2007.

Although they headlined, the Ponys seemed the odd band out on the bill.

Their Kinks-via-hotboxed-El Camino power pop had its best moments during the band’s subtlest gestures.

Drummer Nathan Jerde colored familiar vocal runs with new textures for a few bars, and Brian Case tossed off economical guitar hooks that might have out-Stroked the Strokes had the Ponys gotten there first.

The band’s third full-length album, “Turn the Lights Out,” is full of tiny good ideas (who knew there was untilled soil for the flanger pedal to explore?), and the Ponys pull most of them off with the swagger of a veteran road act.

But for Malone, who in the film “Donnie Darko” was killed in a time-travel accident at the hands of a demonic rabbit, efficiency and modesty were lower priorities.

Wearing a messy bob wig and a wispy sundress out of a Eudora Welty story, Malone used her alto to careen from Nico’s severity to the girlish catcalls of CocoRosie, often for no clear reason.

Still, it was refreshing to see someone finally openly enjoying herself while performing.

Her four-piece band made a worthy ambient racket, but Malone’s theatricality upstaged any chance to parse the songs themselves, which may have been the point all along.

No one in Deerhunter has any major film credits, but David Lynch could have shoehorned their performance somewhere into the third hour of “Inland Empire.”

Lanky, stone-faced frontman Bradford Cox emerged in an ankle-length flower-print gown and a rat’s nest of fake black hair, evoking a recently deceased Patti Smith, and tried to reincarnate Germs frontman Darby Crash by moaning his name into a voice-looping machine.

But Deerhunter’s oceandeep distortion was as overwhelming as Cox was cloying, and nods at pop such as “Spring Hall Convert” were lovely enough to make a hermit leave his house again.

august.brown@latimes.com