By Michael Zabrodsky; page 3

They were dancing in the aisles at the Reg Lenna Civic Center in Jamestown Saturday night as 10,000 Maniacs played to a capacity audience.

The Maniacs were in town playing a benefit for the center, trying to raise at least $10,000 for the center's ongoing program and to bring other acts to perform on stage. That goal was realized with a sellout concert.

"The real neat thing is the band is like family. They rehearsed here (at the center) for three months. They think of this as home," said Philip Morris, executive director of the center.

Music from their latest release Our Time in Eden highlighted the show and during the intermission between the opening band Zap Mama and 10,000 Maniacs, Steve Gustafson, the Maniacs' bassist, presented a copy of a platinum album award the band earned with Our Time In Eden to the center. The award marks the sales of 1 million copies.

The president of the board of directors for the center, Pierre Chagnon, accepted the award on behalf of the civic center. "Absolutely the best of the best of Jamestown," he said of 10,000 Maniacs.

Gustafson said: "All of the proceeds go to the civic center. That's $1 for every Maniac that we have." Gustafson also made a special dedication to every mother, spiritually and emotionally, for Mother's Day.

The rest of the band is Natalie Merchant, vocals; Dennis Drew, keyboards, Rob Buck, guitars; and Jerome Augustyniak, drums.

The band rocked. It was very tight and well-rehearsed. The band brought out everything including a horn section for two numbers off Our Time in Eden and for a new dimension in some older songs. It sounded very strong.

These Are Days was the first song and it got people dancing in a hurry as it's a bouncy number. The song also has been used in a Fox television advertisement for Class of '96 so it is getting some fine airplay across the United States.

The Maniacs then sang What's the Matter Here?, and did great renditions of Like The Weather, Hey Jack Kerouac, You Happy Puppet, and A Campfire Song. Ms. Merchant said it has become almost a tradition for this tour to pick a singer from the audience to sing the male vocal on A Campfire Song. Jamestown resident Lori Cobb was asked on stage and did a fine job of singing the part.

Other songs performed from Our Time In Eden were the beautiful Noah's Dove, and Jezebel both of which evoke a lot of emotion. Candy Everybody Wants, and Few and Far Between, featured the horn section. Mary Ramsey of John and Mary sang backup vocals and offered tasteful viola parts to some songs. And Amanda Kramer who has been on tour with the band since the beginning played additional keyboards and guitar and backup vocals.

For an encore the band played My Sister Rose, Trouble Me, and a very good rendition of To Sir With Love, by LuLu.

The opening act, Zap Mama, a group of five women singers, offered some strong harmonies., The group uses their voices as instruments and has gone back to the traditional a cappella-style songs. It was different and as their set went on, the way they used their voices was incredible. At times they all sound like animals in a forest, then to sounds of a car and then sirens and car horns something that takes a lot of preparation to emulate properly.

Most of Zap Mama's songs were inspired by traditional African and European melodies. They were supporting their album Adventures in Afropea 1.