Making the House of Blues feel like your neighbor’s garage would only be cool in a limited number of scenarios (no, a NASCAR party is not one of them). Luckily for the crowd in attendance on Thursday, Oct. 13, a punk rock concert tops the list.

Co-headliners Saves the Day and Bayside, even with their notoriety and significance at the crossroads of pop-punk, rock and emo, made garage concert hierarchy a reality: no one fan was more loyal than the next, no one band more popular than the last and no one man on stage was more important than the guy at the end of the line for the restroom.

The two East Coast-bred groups took turns closing out nights of the nation-wide tour. In Chicago, Bayside told the crowd good night. The next night in the already garage-like room in Milwaukee’s massive Rave, Saves the Day had the last word.

The crowd in Chicago was glued to that front-of-the-stage bar for Bayside. That was obvious when you noticed the kids in the first two rows were bobbing along to STD, sneakily hiding not knowing more than a couple lines of lyrics. But the unreasonably humble group, lead by singer/songwriter, rhythm guitarist and emo icon Chris Conley, was still unreasonably un-emo in showering the crowd in gracious smiles and guy-next-door small talk.

The crowd could have been to a Lady Gaga degree, or it could have been just the sound crew; these guys just seem so genuinely mental about what they do that their performance would have been the same in either scene. Conley rocked and smiled as big as ever for both the standard old songs that any punk emo fan is obligated to know by heart (“Freakish,” “At Your Funeral”) and the new gems off the latest album, “Daybreak” (which included the ten-minute title track). But come time for the early track “You Vandal,” and little rebels took the cue to throw themselves around a mosh pit under the gleaming approval of the guys onstage.

The end result was a healthy mix of songs old and new played with a smile to what the band seemingly considered a room of old, New Jersey buddies. The performance was spot-on, thanks in part to the guitar solos by Arun Bali and the femininely octaved, pitch perfect wails by Conley.

The short, blonde, striped-polo-ed smile factory was soon replaced by Bayside frontman, Anthony Raneri, a dark-haired, hollow eyed, tattooed New Yorker in a black, second-hand t-shirt. The backdrop boasted the band name in huge letters over speakers that finished a thought reading “BAYSIDE IS A CULT.” And the cult part makes sense. Bayside isn’t mainstream, but the fans, most outfitted in band merch, don’t take the band lightly. At all.

The elbow room disappeared on the floor once the 11 year-old foursome from Queens introduced the venue to the mind-bending finger magic courtesy of lead guitarist Jack O’Shea. Soon after, limbs were flung to the front to be caught and thrown to the side by on-the-lookout security guards. The light show read slightly more Hollywood than the last set, but that garage band practice aura was still thick, this time slightly more punk-flavored. Still, nothing was too showy and nothing was forced. And as classically un-punk as getting along seems, camaraderie was the winning theme of the evening. Both evenings.

The Rave saw two completely different shows, thanks to the headliner switcheroo and the totally new setlists for each band. Though Bayside left out their early single “Masterpiece,” the “Sick Sick Sick” rendition had their loyal followers screaming to be heard. Well aware of this cult-y loyalty, Raneri was generous in lending the mic to the eager participants behind the barricade or else he stepped back to hear the tightly knit group of Baysiders carry the melody up to the ceiling. Whether it was songs from 2004’s “Sirens and Condolences” or 2011’s “Killing Time,” the concert goers had backup vocals ready to go. Raneri’s unassumingly sweet grin of gratitude contradicted his Minor Threat tee.

Saves the Day’s setlist barely resembled what was played in Chicago. The variety in each city was expertly crafted, but the Rave got to rock a little harder. Milwaukee was lucky it got 2007’s “Bones,” a normally elusive, but absolutely killer track live. Nearing the 11pm mark, Conley was warned that he could only play two more songs, though three were on the docket. The flustered singer did the punk rock thing and played the last three anyway. The crowd was stoked to hear them all, and the band was even more stoked to play them. The closer was again “At Your Funeral.” And Conley and company was again grooving and smiling like it’s not the song they’ve closed every show with since 2002.

Nothing from either band was done for the sake of the show, per se. It was for the fun of concert-going and love of music, as corny and obvious as it sounds. Those elements are often forgotten by major labeled, modern, social media- and mp3-born rockers. Making it to the main stage without the help of YouTube means, yeah, these boys will play something good, because they’ve worked at and loved what they do since they set up that first garage stage.