Highlights from Noise Pop festival’s 25th anniversary season

While many of the bands traveled in from Los Angeles, Tennessee, Colorado and beyond, it was clear a good chunk of the festival’s lineup has Bay Area roots that run deep, as venues were often packed with family members and old high school friends.

The Noise Pop appearance at the Independent on Feb. 21 was the first stop in a tour promoting the band’s latest release, “Plural,” sending the electro-pop outfit back on the road for the first time in five years.

What was special about the show, however, was that it was something of a homecoming for frontman Asa Taccone, who grew up in Berkeley along with his brother Jorma, of Andy Samberg’s comedy pop group, the Lonely Island.

Taccone continued to express his love of the Bay Area throughout the night, sharing a particular story from Los Angeles, where the band is based, about helping a friend’s child with a math problem that showed a diverse group of people dividing a pizza.

The New York pop duo has yet to release a full-length album, but that didn’t stop them from filling San Francisco’s Brick & Mortar on Wednesday, Feb. 22.

During the band’s sold-out show at the Fillmore on Thursday, Feb. 23, the eclectic quartet flexed its jazz skills (three of the members are trained jazz musicians) while infusing electronic and hip-hop influences into its songs for a live show that was just fun to dance to and watch.

The venue was packed with fans as well as his family members — El Khatib gave a shout-out to his parents and cousins — who all rocked to tracks like 2011’s “You Rascal You” and his new material off “Savage Times,” which was released Feb. 17.

The L.A. quintet warmed up the stage for El Khatib with songs that felt of another era, from surf rock to doo-wop.

The two sold-out Noise Pop concerts for this trio, which includes Oakland-born rapper Daveed Diggs, was probably the closest most people in the Bay Area will get to watching “Hamilton.”

Diggs, who played the roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the hit Broadway musical, spit bars so fast it was hard to keep up, but the crowd screamed for more during the noise/hip-hop group’s stops at the Starline Social Club on Friday, Feb. 24, and Brick & Mortar on Saturday, Feb. 25.

The intimate shows featured local favorites Thao Nguyen of Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Con Brio and Melina Duterte, who goes by the stage name Jay Som.