ORONO – There was more reckoning than reveling going on when Ani DiFranco took the stage Saturday night.

DiFranco, who stopped at the Maine Center for the Arts as part of her Wreckage Unravelling tour, played a low-key set that felt melancholy at times. It was a departure from her last visit to Orono – an upbeat, high-energy performance that felt like it lasted all night.

Not that an Ani DiFranco concert is supposed to be poppy. She’s no Britney – thank God. She just seemed a little more preoccupied than in shows past. Maybe she is.

If the rest of the audience – mostly female, from high school to mid-30s, – noticed, they didn’t show it. DiFranco had the packed house on its feet, dancing and swaying amid a cloud of smoke that was part fog machine, part clove cigarette, part marijuana, which somehow got by the legions of security guards frisking people at the door.

In the nearly two hours that she played, she didn’t break a single guitar string (at least not that I could see). She even put down her guitar and played the keyboard alongside Julie Wolf for her first public performance of “Oh My My.” She and her band sampled from her soon-to-be-released double album, “Revelling-Reckoning.” Of the new tracks, “Rock Paper Scissors” lingered, almost hauntingly sad.

She also played the favorites – “Untouchable Face,” “Diner” and “Letter to a John” – and did a little spoken word with a twist, almost chanting “The Slant.”

DiFranco was backed up by her fantastic band: Shane Endsley on horns, Daren Hahn on drums, Jason Mercer on bass, Hans Teuber on horns and Julie Wolf on keyboard.

Ed Hamell, aka Hamell on Trial, gave a frenetic, funny opening act. Hamell gave DiFranco a run for her money in the string-breaking department, attacking his acoustic guitar. He was loud, brutally honest and an amazing guitar player to boot. He injected a little energy into the crowd before DiFranco’s decidedly mellower set.