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Reggae legends The Wailers are headlining the Hometown Holidays festival this weekend, but there's a couple of acts with metro area connections worth checking out. On Saturday night, Annandale native Pat McGee will take the stage of the Rockville Town Center. McGee, who now lives in Rhode Island, pumps out hook-driven pop with classic rock roots.

"We've played that gig before," McGee says. "It's fantastic. We're psyched to be back. It should be killer."

If you don't know McGee by name, you might recognize a couple of his songs. "Beautiful Ways" and "Must Have Been Love" grazed the Billboard Adult Top 40 chart a few years back. The 36-year-old says the hits inspire louder applause than some of the other tunes in his catalogue, but the people who have followed his career since 1995's "From The Wood" continue to be the core of his fan base.

"Throughout the late '90s and early 2000s, we were a huge college touring band," McGee says. "These people from college have all moved on . . . The Internet is a great tool for me to find them. It's like, hey I know you live out in the suburbs, but do you want to come out to the 9:30 Club?"

Once signed to Warner Bros., McGee calls indie imprint Rock Ridge Music home. "These Days (The Virginia Sessions)," started out as a self-released effort peddled at concerts. Rock Ridge stepped in to distribute the album to a wider audience earlier this year. Anchoring the release is the somber "Come Back Home." Originally intended as a love letter from a war bride to her husband, the track took on a double meaning when longtime drummer Chris Williams passed away.

"It's fitting because Chris was in the military before he was in the band," McGee says. "It's got a lot meaning to us when we play it every single time."

On Sunday, Baltimore's Can't Hang will open for The Wailers. Guitarist Steve Lynch says the show will be the last in a series of collaborations that have seen Can't Hang play before the reggae elite—Toots and the Maytals, Yellowman, Inner Circle and Ziggy Marley.

But to call Can't Hang reggae would be inaccurate.

"We all like the Southern California punk and D.C. hardcore," Lynch explains. "Our singer [Luke Mysko] is the furthest into reggae out of all of us. Most of us knew The Specials and Sublime, but he went further back to Gregory Isaacs and Barrington Levy and all the stuff from Jamaica."

Often a band with a big local following like Can't Hang attributes their success to hard work and passionate live shows. Lynch offers another explanation.

"Underage drinking," he says. "We started when we were like 18 or 19 and everybody that was coming to our shows was in high school. We played this [run down] bar in Fell's Point, and anyone could drink there."

The band formed when Lynch, Mysko and bassist Rob Eisenhut played together while attending Towson High School. Their bond has remained strong for a decade; their ability to keep a drummer has not.

"Maybe it has something to do with them sitting in the back," Lynch muses.

With current stickman Alex Crowley on board, the band drove up to Syracuse, N.Y., this spring to pound out a new album, due later this summer. For two weeks, the quartet lived and recorded at More Sound Studio under the direction of producer Jason Randall aka Jocko. Lynch was grateful for the relaxed atmosphere and complete musical immersion.

"It was just the best vibe," he says. "We've never got in a room and just played. All of a sudden, it's three o'clock in the morning, and I'm like ‘Should we try and record one of these?' And [Jocko's] like, ‘Well, you've already got three songs done. You guys are done for the night.'"

Expect a helping of new songs and a healthy dose of fan favorites like the totally chill "Bird River Grove" on Saturday.

So if carnival rides, food sampling and art displays aren't your thing, come out to Rockville Town Center for the jams.

Pat McGee will perform at about 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, and Can't Hang will take the stage at 7 p.m. on Sunday at Hometown Holidays in Rockville Town Square in downtown Rockville. Admission is free. Call 240-314-8620 or visit rockvillemd.gov/events/hth.