What kind of bear is best?

Last night a few of us went to the Bell House for NYC Pop Fest (which has actually been going on since Thursday and ends today).  We managed to catch all 6 bands:

• Very Truly Yours - from Chicago!  Adorable, fun music that made me feel like it should be a soundtrack for a cutesy Zooey Deschanel movie.
• World Atlas - Brooklyn's version of Belle & Sebastian (pretty much?)  A gazillion musicians on stage, as is often the case with the big orchestral pop sound.  One of their members, though, is a crossover who was in My Teenage Stride back in 2007 when I saw them at Cake Shop!
• Bears -  from Ohio, but one member lives in Chicago now(!)  We talked to them after the show, and they were all really nice and personable - man I love midwesterners sometimes.  Cori was a little bored while we were sitting around later in the night and drew a picture of their band, and of Very Truly Yours.  Anyway, (spoiler alert!) they were my favorite band-I-had-not-heard-before last night, both musically and in stage presence and energy.  Craig and Charlie and the two main band members, sharing lead vocal duties.  Also, I really liked all of the graphics and illustrations that Bears used, which we found out are drawn by Charlie's girlfriend, who also sells things on Etsy.  It was a lot of fun and I hope they come back to NY again. 
• My Teenage Stride - right, back to this story.  So I thought I recognized the girl in World Atlas, and I was totally right because they pulled up their former band members on stage with them to sing their last song of the night, "To Live and Die in the Airport Lounge."
• BOAT - something about the first half of BOAT's set reminded me of some of the bands I listened to in high school - not in a bad way, but more in an energetic happy way.  As it progressed, it was really solid and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  They were fun and people were dancing around quite a bit out in the audience.
• The Wake - (UK) 1) The Wake has been a band longer than I've been a person. 2) Their sound spans this entire time period, so there was a little something for everyone. 3) We were so tired by the time they came on that we pretty much sat the entire time, which isn't a personal statement against the band, it's just a good reminder that I should get more sleep the night before a music festival.

 Archival photo of My Teenage Stride in 2007 at Cake Shop!