LEWISTON — The Franco Center will host a concert on Friday, Jan. 24, by the Phish tribute band Pardon Me, Doug.

This will be the second appearance at the Franco Center by the Portland-based band, which will return for yet another show in May. Their first show, held in the Franco Center’s downstairs Heritage Hall last February, was very well-attended and earned them an invitation to come back for two shows in the current season.

“Their audiences are growing, and they’re playing in larger venues than they were only a year ago,” said Franco Center Executive Director Louis Morin. “I wanted to book them twice before they outgrow the room.”

Pardon Me, Doug goes to great – some might say obsessive – lengths to recreate both the musical and visual concert experience that legions of Phish “phans” flock to every year. Their name derives from a line in a Phish song called “I Didn’t Know,” the melody of which borrows liberally in one section from “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” a 1941 song made famous by the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Like Phish, the band maintains a large catalog of songs – over 100 and counting – to ensure that their fans hear different shows from night to night. Their devotion to the Vermont jam band, however, goes far beyond musical arrangements, very long sets and an extensive song catalog.

For example, guitarist Benny St. Clair commissioned a Maine luthier to create not one but two exact replicas of the signature Paul Languedoc-designed guitar used by Phish’s guitarist, Trey Anastasio, lest he break a string in mid-song. He also scours interviews and articles in magazines targeted to guitar-enthusiasts for information on the latest foot pedals and other electronic gadgetry that Anastasio uses and adds to with each tour.

The band even sought out and procured the exact model of Electrolux vacuum cleaner used for decades by Phish drummer Jon Fishman in his occasional yet iconic vacuum cleaner solos, in which the suction sound is manipulated to create different musical tones. Pardon Me, Doug’s drummer for this show, Toby White, wears a homemade version of the donut-emblazoned muumuu dress that Fishman wears for every Phish concert.

But such obsessiveness mirrors that of Phish devotees themselves, many of whom take weeks off at a time in order to attend an entire series of concerts when the band goes on tour. And it appears so far to be smart marketing, as they graduate from small pubs to regular appearances at Port City Music Hall in Portland to the slopeside bars at Sugarloaf and Sunday River.

Tickets are $6 in advance and $8 at the door and can be purchased at www.francocenter.org or 207-689-2000. They can also be purchased at the Franco Center box office, Cedar St., between noon and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the show starts at 9 p.m.

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