Be prepared for some surprises. The Guster concert, starting at 7:30 tonight at the Bryce Jordan Center, could be chock full of them.

"It's been a year and a half since the release of our album," Ryan Miller, lead vocalist for Guster, said. "We're just trying to come up with weird shit to make it interesting for ourselves and our fans."

Miller said more than half of the set will probably be earlier music and the rest will be off of the band's newest album, Ganging Up On the Sun.

Aside from the band's usual catalogue to choose from, the set may also include some bizarre, unforeseen elements.

"I like doing weird covers when I can, and I've been doing some freestyle rapping," Miller said. "Sometimes I rap and I don't even rhyme. I'm a terrible rapper but I really enjoy it. It's very self-indulgent."

Another potential surprise is Guster's opening act, Brett Dennen, whose music is self-described as "poetic folk music with world rhythms."

Dennen, who has recently toured with John Mayer, said his fan base and online buzz within the indie rock music scene has picked up within the last year. The California native and University of California-Santa Cruz alumnus has never been on a college tour before.

"I'm psyched to be playing for college students," Dennen said.

"It's a good music-listening crowd. It's less commercial and nothing is force-fed," he added.

The Penn State crowd that goes to the show will be able to experience a more intimate setting than one would think was possible in the 15,000-person capacity venue that is the Bryce Jordan Center (BJC).

"We can scale down our venue because we have large curtains that come down all the way to the floor, so we can cut off about 60 percent of the center, take out the ground-floor seats and turn it into a theater," Bernie Punt, BJC director of public relations, said.

"Fans can get really close to the stage so they can dance, sing and jump around. The bands like that; they like that energy," Punt added.

Guster, whose songs have been featured in movies such as Disturbia and Wedding Crashers, generally likes to play its newer songs but sometimes redoes its older ones.

"It's an issue of freshness for me. Songs like 'Demons' we've been playing for about 10 years," Miller said. "That's usually when I'm thinking about laundry or doughnuts."

Guster has never played with Dennen before this tour, but Miller said he is optimistic for Dennen's live performances.

Dennen, who is often compared to Jack Johnson, said he doesn't mind the comparison, although their music is substantially different.

"I'm not much like him other than the fact that I'm white and I play guitar and sing songs -- and I'm a man," Dennen said. "But I appreciate the compliment because I'm a fan of his."

Punt, who urged students to arrive to the concert on time so they wouldn't miss a great opening act, said the BJC booked Guster because it was made aware of its college tour and wanted to be a part of it.

"I'm quite familiar with [Guster]," Punt said. "I know that they're wacky and crazy in a good way. They have a really good attitude toward their music and life."

As for the show itself, Miller wouldn't make any promises for freestyle rapping, though he said they would try to "make everything really loose."

"It makes a better show for us," he said, "and it makes a better show for people if we just try to keep the show loose."