Escape to N.Y. update: The Static Jacks

Could Escape to New York have already established a breakthrough artist?

New Jersey’s The Static Jacks, above, kicked off the festival in rocking style with a hard-driving set of songs from their upcoming debut “If You’re Young,” due out Aug. 30 on Fearless Records.

“We’ve never played on a big stage before,” said drummer Nick Brennan. “But we would’ve played on the dirt in the field to be a part of this.”

The band certainly brought it’s big-stage game. Think of a young Bono (singer Ian Devaney’s floppy mop of curls comes close to the U2 front man’s style circa “Boy”) fronting The Replacements, filtered through something dramatic and British -- maybe Glasvegas or Echo & The Bunnymen -- and you’ll come close to the raw, but polished power of its first single, “Into the Sun.”

“We’re a punk-rock guitar band who writes anthemic, smart rock songs,” Brennan says. “We like to use gang vocals and bang on things and we love fast-paced music and big hooky choruses and we think all of those things are in that one song.”

And the thing is, Brennan isn’t overselling, which the lucky few at Escape to New York early on learned quickly and the rest of the world will find out soon enough.

Above, Ian Devaney of The Static Jacks plays Friday, on opening day of the Escape to New York Festival. (Aug. 5, 2011)