by: Michael Zabrodsky

The benches will be cleared so people can dance.

Tonight is the last concert of the 10,000 Maniacs Tour, promoting its most recent release Our Time In Eden. The tour that began in November will end at Chautauqua Institution's Amphitheater.

Saying goodbye is always hard, and the band will have to say plenty of goodbyes tonight.

"Last gigs of the tours are always emotional. It's always a sad kind of thing," said bassist Steve Gustafson in a telephone interview from Manhattan.

Although it is not the band's final concert of its career, the band is taking a hiatus.

Gustafson cleared up the report of the band's breakup. "You can't believe anyone but us. When we decide to stop, we might not tell anyone," he said.

Meanwhile, after the tour ends the band will play a benefit at Madison Square Garden in New York City, July 26. Also the band will go into the studio to tie up loose ends with a new MTV Unplugged album due, out in October.

Gustafson is the first one to say nothing lasts forever. "We are not going to last forever. It's going to end sometime, but we don't know when. We are going to shift into a different gear."

He said the band will probably do a lot of old songs and "some nostalgia stuff," and songs from Our Time In Eden.

During the last year the band has traveled extensively throughout the United States, which included a performance at President Clinton's Inaugural Ball in January. In May the band started a new leg of the tour.