Playing Saturday night

to benefit Good

Shepherd Food Bank

Rustic Overtones front man Dave Gutter loves a sweaty bar where he and his band can rage ferocious and loud.

But over the past two decades, the Maine band has explored many genres of music from punk to funk to jazz to pop and reincarnated itself many times over. About to release their 9th album, the band will be performing in the unlikely venue of the Franco Center’s upstairs concert Performance Hall.

“There are many different sides to Rustic,” said Gutter. “We can seem like punk rock in a club, but there’s a musical side where we want to focus on every nuance in a place where you can hear a pin drop.”

The seven-piece band will add a string quartet to its acoustic concert on Saturday at the Franco Center in Lewiston. While the show starts at 8 p.m., the band will be downstairs in the Heritage Hall at 7 p.m. to sign autographs and sell merchandise. Part of the proceeds of the evening will go to the Good Shepherd Food Bank.

“They’re such a great band with a big following,” says Kristen Miale, President of the Good Shepherd Food Bank, “and through this gesture, they’re helping create awareness not just about what we do, but also the larger problem of hunger in general.

The last time Rustic Overtones performed at the Franco Center, it was in the downstairs Heritage Hall, where they drew the biggest audience of the season. A walk upstairs gave keyboard player Mike Taylor a glimpse of the nine-foot Steinway concert grand piano. They asked to play upstairs for their next show, said Louis Morin, executive director for the center.

“Having seen them play with an 11-piece orchestra a few years ago at the Waterville Opera House, I knew they could pull this off,” said Morrin. “They are serious, educated musicians in a way that many rock bands are not, and they spent months charting out the sheet music for each additional orchestra musician.”

Gutter said the band sometimes seems like a chameleon as they delve into different music.

“Some of our stuff is just silly, but some of it is quite serious,” said Gutter. “We’re ever changing and like to take risks. Sometimes we lose fans, but then again we gain fans. We don’t worry about what we should sound like.”

Rustic Overtones ventured into the string world with orchestral arrangements on their 2009 release “The New Way Out.” The band will releases “Let’s Start a Cult Part II” next week as a continuation of last year’s album that Gutter calls a metaphor for being a musician and finding the things that comfort him.

What: Rustic Overtones concert

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 24 (signing event at 7 p.m.)

Where: Franco Center, 46 Cedar St., Lewiston

Tickets: $18 advance online at www.francocenter.org or by phone at 689-2000 / $22 at the door.

By Emily Tuttle

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