The Bangor Symphony Orchestra rocked out Saturday night at the Collins Center for the Arts in Orono to a delighted crowd at the 30th opening gala concert on the University of Maine campus. “ Piano Men: The Music of Elton and Billy” featured hits songs from the 1970s written by two of the era’s greatest troubadours, Elton John and Billy Joel, in case there was any doubt about their last names.
The symphony performed in 1986 at the grand opening of the Maine Center for the Arts — renamed the Collins Center in 2008 after an $11 million renovation — with renowned violinist Isaac Stern and world class cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Since that first gala, an opening season event that raises funds for the center has become a tradition.
Joe Boucher, who grew up in Biddeford and lives in Portland, was the piano man and vocalist Saturday night. He conceived the show with bass guitarist and orchestrator Christopher Eastburn of Arlington, Massachusetts. Gary Backstrom of Gloucester, Massachusetts, played lead guitar. All three performed in front of the orchestra, while drummer Steve Hodgkin, an Ellsworth native who lives in Freeport, was behind the symphony.
The songs performed included some of John’s and Joel’s greatest hits. Boucher and Eastburn chose them because many of them originally were backed up by orchestras in recording studios but not on the road. The set list included “Angry Young Man,” “My Life,” “Pressure” and “Allentown,” all by Joel, as well as “Rocketman,” “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer” and “Levon” by John. The obligatory encore were what may be the artists’ signature songs — “Candle in the Wind” and “Piano Man.”
The orchestra gave a breadth and depth to some of rock ‘n’ roll’s classic songs. A saxophone solo by symphony musician Glen Sargent on Joel’s “New York State of Mind” and Bangor-area singer Rebeckah Perry’s duet with Boucher on John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” elicited whoops and cheers from the appreciative audience.
A couple of additions would have enhanced the performance. Putting the drummer on a higher platform behind the orchestra so he was visible to the entire audience and not just people sitting in the balcony would have made him feel like a member of the band instead of the invisible percussionist.
Also, a set list in the program that included who wrote which songs, what albums each first appeared on and the years the albums were released would have educated audience members for whom the music of Joel and John was not the soundtrack of their youths.
The gala dinner and concert traditionally kicks off the season for aficionados of the performing arts the way the first game does for football fans. As in sports, the opening performance can be a harbinger of things to come, as the first concert at the center in 1986 was meant to set the tone for its future. Or, that first show or game can be an aberration, a lesson to be learned from and never repeated as the 1998 “Spirit of the Dance,” a cheap knockoff of “Riverdance,” was for the performing arts center.
“Piano Men” appears to be the former for the center. It brought in octogenarians who have attended every gala for the past three decades, baby boomers for whom “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and “Only the Good Die Young” were anthems, as well as their grandchildren, who’d most likely never heard of Joel or John before Saturday night.
The 30th anniversary season the center’s executive director Danny Williams has built, which includes performances by comedian Craig Ferguson, jazz artist Wynton Marsalis, folk singer Patty Griffin, the Broadway tour of “The Producers” and “The Berenstain Bears Live,” reflects the center’s need to appeal across generations to ensure there will be a gala to kick off the center’s 60th season.