When The Disco Biscuits take the stage at Sunday's The Great Get-Down Homecoming Festival, it will be another kind of homecoming for the Philly-based trance fusion rockers.

"We went to school at U. Penn and everyone thinks that's Penn State, so I feel like we have a home in State College," drummer Sam Altman said. "There are so many kids in the middle of the woods, and everyone's cool and laid-back."

Since The Disco Biscuits launched as a University of Pennsylvania party band in 1995, the band has grown into one of the nation's premiere jam bands sporting a sound that's a fusion of trippy, hippy lyrics and driving techno beats.

The Biscos have churned out four studio albums, toured in support of the Black Crowes, the Jerry Garcia Band and Morphine, and have received flattering comparisons to the legendary Frank Zappa.

"They're high strung rock with jazz bass and a little electric feel," fan Elliot Gelfand (senior-finance) said.

The Biscuits, who sound like a synthed-out Phish, surfaced from college's beer-and-band scene with ease.

"We played every frat at Penn, then every bar in Philly, then there was no place left to play, so we went outside Philly," Altman said.

The Biscuits have hit up many State College venues including Crowbar, 420 E. College Ave., and the Tussey Mountain Amphitheater, where, for the past three years, the band has headlined Nittany 500, a summer-time live music festival.

Dave Fahrenbach, general manager of Tussey Mountain, said The Disco Biscuits put on an amazing live performance, and not just because the music rocks.

"They have an incredible light show," Fahrenbach said.

"A standard band's light show would be changing the colors of background lighting, but they have a show with rotating lights and lights that project designs."

The Biscuits are infamous for opulent and energetic live shows, which Altman referred to as the band's "bread and butter." In about four months, the Biscuits will butter up New York City for a just-booked New Year's Eve show at the Hammerstein Ballroom, only blocks from Times Square and Dick Clark.

"We have a level of intensity that we strive for every single night," Altman said. "We really open up on stage and take it really far out and play fast and intense and get into it and see the crowd get into that. We pound it home every night."