It felt a bit like ’80s night Wednesday at The Granada as The Donnas, OK Go and Rooney channeled the spirits of The Cars, The Ramones and even Pat Benatar into a showcase of youthful, energetic rock.

Los Angeles quintet Rooney opened the show with a low-key 45-minute set of “Candy-O”-esque power-pop, complete with harmonies and synthesizers. While the songs weren’t necessarily bad, there wasn’t much variety to their material, and there was an element of “Didn’t they just play this?” to the whole event. Rooney’s high point came at the end of the set with “Pop Stars,” a lament on the seemingly machine-made, lifeless teen idols of recent years.

Rooney’s lack of energy was vastly compensated for by OK Go, who pulled in the crowd using sing-alongs, clapping, bantering and audience members onstage. Before closing with its radio hit “Get Over It,” OK Go treated listeners to a cover of Toto’s “Hold the Line.”

The energy level of the night rose with each band, and headliners The Donnas had plenty to spare. The crowd, on the other hand, didn’t seem able to equal the group’s output, prompting lead singer Donna A. (Brett Anderson) to repeatedly ask if the audience was “ready to rock.”

Watching The Donnas was a bit like witnessing Pat Benatar sit in with The Ramones, and the fact that band members are already 10-year veterans of the Bay Area punk scene and still in their 20s says a lot about their work ethic.

The Donnas’ by-the-numbers style of hard rock is loud, fast, dumb and amusing. In a brief, one-hour performance the all-girl foursome sang mostly about drinking and making out. The set was made up largely of cuts from their new record, “Spend The Night,” and included “It’s On the Rocks” and their MTV/radio crossover hit “Take It Off.”

While certainly not brainy or ambitious, there was still an element of female empowerment to The Donnas, and they should be commended for succeeding in a genre so dominated by males.

— Aaron Passman is a Kansas University senior.