Brave Combo won’t officially celebrate its 30th anniversary — three decades of making mind-bending polka music that rocks as hard as any music that’s even next door to rock — until the fall.

But the band will give the crowds at the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival a fair preview on Sunday, during its festival-ending concert in Quakertown Park.

Courtesy photo/Jane Finch

Brave Combo is, from left, Danny O’Brien, Jeffrey Barnes, Ross Schodek, Carl Finch (front), Joe Cripps and Arjuna Contreras.

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“I call our set the homecoming reunion,” said Carl Finch, founder and lead singer of the band. “I think the whole idea of making Sunday the Denton homecoming day has been a good way to end the festival. I think it’s important to be able to go out with a bang.

“A lot of the festivals we play, Sundays are the day everything is winding down. At the Arts & Jazz Festival, Sunday is a big day and we get a good crowd. This is one of the gigs we do in the year that is full-on. I mean this in a good sense, but it’s hard to be subtle. We go out there to try to get the people in the audience to lose their minds.”

Brave Combo, a Denton-based polka band with two Grammy Awards to its credit, has been playing the festival since it was called Spring Fling. The band had formerly played Saturday nights, but was eventually saved for the final day. This year, the band takes the Wells Fargo-Budweiser Jazz Stage with Finch in his typical spot near his keyboard, guitar and accordion, Jeffrey Barnes on woodwinds and saxophone, Danny O’Brien on trumpet, Ross Schodek on bass and Arjuna Contreras on drums. Joe Cripps will join the group for the festival concert, too, and Danny Jarabek will chip in on the button box. Finch said he’s planning on having background vocals.

“We’re going to be creating a lot more sound and a lot more noise,” Finch said. “Everyone definitely needs to come out and check out the Cripps-Schodek-Contreras rhythm section.”

Brave Combo has just finished The Exotic Rockin’ Life, its latest CD. Finch said the band will probably play almost every track from the new disc. The group will also play its greatest hits: “Flying Saucer,” “Do Something Different,” “Ice Machine in the Desert” and the “The Hokey Pokey.”

“And we’ll do the Chicken Dance,” Finch said. “Except we call it ‘THE BRAVE COMBO CHICKEN DANCE EXPERIENCE,’ in all caps. We’re literally inviting people to lose their minds. After we introduce it, we try to add some reverb to it, like it’s a voice from the sky.”

Brave Combo has been at work doing more than turning out albums that might make Grammy voters take notice. The group was nominated for an Annie, an award from the International Animated Film Society, for their contributions the animated PBS series As the Wrench Turns, a cartoon based on the nationally syndicated radio show Car Talk. The band also has a live recording of a concert performance with the Mesquite Symphony Orchestra, The Mesquite Polkas.

The band is known — and praised — for being able to take classical music and sacred Christmas music and skillfully turn it into a polka, rumba or cha-cha. Having their polkas expanded over an orchestra has been welcome, Finch said.

“It’s a unique concept in the polka world. I have some orchestral stuff, but not like this, where a polka band plays with symphonies,” Finch said. “We have a particular arranger we work with. He can take things we’ve written and hear a harp playing it. Or an oboe playing something else. He’s got a really good ear for textures and things like that. We’re leaving it up to him, generally. We dig his work.

“And I’m into chance playing a role in what we do. We always want to look a little bit in touch with the moment. We like for, in each show, to have something that is different from every other show. You don’t want to go on autopilot. Have fun is the priority anymore. And the best way to have fun is to go out and have fun. Go out there and get the audience to go berserk.”

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com .