The Academy Is, The Cab aim to add teen appeal to DuPage County Fair

To figure out what kids want, sometimes the smartest thing to do is just ask.

As the DuPage County Fair prepares to welcome indie rockers The Academy Is and The Cab on Friday, July 24, fair organizers credit their children, nieces and nephews for helping them choose groups with pop appeal.

"I'm a father of five and my kids range in age from 10 to 24, so I always like to ask them and their friends, 'What kind of music are you guys listening to these days?'" said fair official Jim McGuire.

Needless to say, McGuire had happy campers at home when he announced The Academy Is would perform alongside their Las Vegas-based label mates, The Cab.

The Academy Is not only toured with arena-worthy acts like Fall Out Boy and local heroes the Plain White T's (who performed at the DuPage County Fair in 2007), the group also landed in the 18th spot on the Billboard Top 200 with its latest album, "Fast Times at Barrington High."

The album's title is a nod to Barrington High School, where members William Beckett and Adam Siska attended before finding musical fame. Like the Plain White T's, whose members also hail from the Chicago area, McGuire said he hopes their performance will attract the same attention from homegrown fans.

"You get discouraged when so many people put so much effort into making this happen, and you hear of people who have never been to the fair," McGuire said. "So we are trying to reach out to get different groups of people to come and see what we're all about."

Friday's rock set continues the DuPage County Fair's recent tradition of tinkering with the musical lineup in hopes of bringing new sounds that strike a chord with suburban audiences.

Since 2006, the Wheaton stage has shed its habit of booking strictly country and classic rock acts. Since then, the fair has welcomed Disney teen idols, popular Christian artists and even R&B pop singers with varying degrees of ticket sale success.

McGuire said he knows The Academy Is, along with this year's grandstand acts Los Lobos and The Wailers, are not traditional county fair sounds. But that's the point.

"We are still an agricultural fair and are proud of that, but we want to reach out (to) the diversity that DuPage County is," he said. "We want people to come for the concert, then go out and spend some time here so we can grow interest and keep our fair going strong."