MARAH

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IT was just a rumor: Bruce Springsteen was going to play a Lower East Side club with a young Philly band with which he’d recorded a song earlier this year.

Tuesday night, the Mercury Lounge felt closer to the sun than usual, making the brick-oven showcase very toasty, but it didn’t matter, because everybody thought Bruce was coming.

The club was filled, there was a camera crew near the stage and the cannons seemed primed for a big-bang performance. Near 11 p.m., that Philly band, Marah, hit the stage – and by the end of its first song, waiting for Springsteen was a secondary thought.

Marah turned sky-high expectation into down-to-earth rock reality that made your head bang and your heart pump.

Clearly, the band – with its singing, guitar-strumming brothers, Dave and Serge Bielanko – doesn’t need a star to hitch its wagon to.

The music was loose, updating the classic rock sonics of vintage Stones with hints of Rockpile and E Street echoes. Marah’s chops are solid, but what separates these guys from all the other rock hopefuls is their united-we-stand intimacy. It’s as if the members have ESP.

Scruffy Dave inhales, neat Serge exhales, the goofball bass player, Jamie Mahon, sweats and cue-ball keyman Owen Morris wipes his hairless head. And while they offer one another nods and winks to steer a song’s direction, their rock anthems are like skyrockets – pretty and unpredictable about where and when they’ll land.

The same could be said of Marah itself.

It’s just a rumor, but this little band from Philly is gonna be huge.

Marah is playing the Mercury Lounge every Tuesday in July. Springsteen might show up for a gig, but if he doesn’t, it doesn’t matter.