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Raley Field was packed with around 6,000 Steven Miller Band fans Saturday night. Some lifelong fans, some who’ve adopted their penchants for classic rock from their parents, and all ready to rock.

"[Steve] put on a good show. I did not start listening to his music until I was in college, which was not too long ago, and it just goes to show how music (and the national debt) can span across generations,” said Ron Rosenberg, who frequents many a concert at Raley Field.

Young, old, and everything in between gathered to welcome Steve Miller Band to Sacramento on its first visit to the region since 2000.

While expectations of the band’ return to Sactown were high, the energy was pretty underwhelming, and the crowd got off to a slow start despite opening with classics like “Jet Airliner” and ”Take the Money and Run.”

Fans were mellow still when songs from their newly-released blues album “Bingo” were sampled, and the cheers and applause seemed like more of a courtesy from the ho-hum crowd.

Fortunately, by the end of the night Miller, and his men picked the energy up a couple notches and classic rock concert antics were in full effect. This might have had something to do with “Space Cowboy,” “Abracadabra,” and, of course, “Joker.”

The unexpected star of the evening was high school freshman and extremely talented Dillon Brown from Corona, Calif., who jammed alongside Miller and his crew for “Fly Like an Eagle” and (after much begging from the crowd) an encore of “Jungle Love.” The crowd went crazy for the talented Brown, who who had no problem keeping up with the band.

Brown is a participant in the “Kids Rock Free” program, establish by the Fender Center.

Miller took the opportunity in between sets to promote the program, which provides free and low-cost musical education to children ages 7 up to 17 and also tell stories about lost guitars and other anecdotes that left the crowd a little lost.

In the end, it seemed like the only thing that drove the crowd mad and made them crazy was the lack of consistent enthusiasm from the band. Better luck next decade?

Photo credit: Michael Althouse, http://overflowstuff.blogspot.com/ and http://25yearplan.blogspot.com