Music lovers found out the easy way Friday night that you can wait for spring – or you can bring in Buckwheat Zydeco and the Ils Sont Partis Band and let them melt the snow in a sizable chunk of Penobscot County.

All the way from Louisiana – that’s LOO-zee-ana – the energy of the versatile Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural Jr. and his band nearly shook loose the acoustical disks that hang over the Hutchins Concert Hall at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.

Don’t call it Cajun, although Zydeco certainly has some of the same elements as that popular brand of music from the same area. And some would say the best tunes of the night, the most passionate and hard driving, were those that made use of Dural’s French language and roots.

Not sure what he was singing? Couldn’t translate the French? Didn’t matter. It worked, big time.

But there also was much more to the concert, because Dural’s brand of zydeco encompasses so many influences – Creole, soul, rock ‘n’ roll, a bit of country, a touch of Caribbean.

Best of all, everything he sang and played was accompanied by the six-member Ils Sont Partis Band – two trumpeters, two guitarists, a keyboardist and a drummer, all wonderful. Much of zydeco depends on precise timing and perfect synchronization for full effect, and these guys had it.

Dural is big on audience participation, and he got what he wanted – even the listener types were out of their seats to join him in “Hard to Stop” and the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden.”

The audience whipped into shape quite nicely, too, for the Hank Williams favorite, “Hey, Good Lookin’,” given a different flavor with Dural’s inflection and musicality.

While band members excelled at playing together, keyboardist Sir Reginal Dural added spice by playing the rub board – a washboard-type instrument worn over the chest. On a number of songs, his “dueling” with his dad on accordion was a lot of fun.

Several of the evening’s memorable moments came courtesy of a stirring version of Fats Domino’s “Walkin’ to New Orleans.”

And then there was Dural’s singing, of course – and his passing the microphone to a young woman among the dancing throng in front of the stage – and getting the audience to sing opposite her.

Then, too, he reminded the audience, “You’re gonna need somebody sometime. You may not need them all the time, but you’re gonna need somebody.”

So, with 37-pound accordion strapped to his chest, Dural leaned over and asked one of the dancing fans to hold down one of the keys while he played several others at the other end of the instrument – too far from that one key for him to have been able to play them and that one, too, by himself.

Point made.

The group has just released their first live album, “Buckwheat Zydeco, Down Home Live.” Information is available on their Web site, www.buckwheatzydeco.com.

For now, “ils sont partis” – “they’re off” on the rest of the tour, which will take them across the country, reaching Las Vegas in April. Come May, they’ll head north to Winnipeg and Edmonton.

And, ideally, one day back to Maine.