When the Tap Dogs take the stage, it feels like you’re watching that Diet Coke ad where the women in the office huddle around the window to check out the sexy construction worker on his break.

Except there are six construction workers. And they can dance. Tap dance. In butt-kicking boots. On wiggly scaffolding. With sparks flying around them. Wearing jeans and T-shirts, Carhartts and tank tops. No sequins allowed.

The Tap Dogs pounded the stage at the Maine Center for the Arts on Saturday in an afternoon performance that brought the audience to its feet for two standing ovations – even the people in the front row, who got soaked despite the ponchos they were given at the door.

Things got a little wet offstage and sweaty onstage, as the Dogs built and tore down the set and danced for 11/2 hours straight. Toward the end, they splashed and splattered buckets full of water all over the stage and into the audience. It was funny, energetic and intense. Less than four hours later, they did it all over again in an evening performance.

Co-founder Dein Perry, who did not perform in Orono, tapped his way through childhood in Australia. When he turned 17, he started work as an industrial mechanic. Six years later, he headed to Sydney to try his hand (or feet, as the case may be) at show business. He earned early fame for his dancing, but he wanted to break out on his own.

He started a dance group, Tap Brothers, with some friends from Newcastle, but it wasn’t exactly what he had envisioned. In 1995, he agreed to collaborate with director Nigel Triffitt and composer Andrew Wilkie on Tap Dogs, and the rest, of course, is history.

The group now has an American touring troupe, eight of whom visited Orono on Saturday. Led by dance director Sheldon Perry and dance captain Ryan Gravelle, these guys can dance. They don’t just have the moves, they have the groove. They can tap out complex rhythms on foot-triggered drum pads. They had some rock concert-style backup, but the Dogs had

enough beat on their own.

From the loud, miked tapping to the steel construction-site set, to the muscular, tough dancers, there was nothing soft about the Tap Dogs’ performance. The energy in the concert hall was almost tangible – the standing-room crowd responded with thunderous applause, not to mention a bit of toe tapping of their own.

Even the ones in suits, soaked, in the front row.