Not all Counting Crows fans want to sleep with front man Adam Duritz, but the significant portion of those who do cannot be ignored. You can tell when you look at a crowd of college-aged women waving their hands and hypnotically singing along to "Oh Susanna" that he had them at hello. Or rather, at some point along the band's nine-year journey since the 1993 release of "August and Everything After." How did a man who so closely resembles a Fraggle manage to garner the lust of so many girls? And who is Maria? Or Mr. Jones, for that matter? Thousands of five-college students and people from the community gathered at UMass' Mullins Center this past Saturday night in search of answers to those very questions.

For those who have been loyal fans since the days of "August" (those days were called "middle school" for many of us), seeing them in concert now is an intense experience. Remembering what Duritz's hair used to look like while embracing the band's new freshness and lyrical emotional honesty is a pleasant challenge.

These days, Counting Crows is a band with nothing to prove. And they know it. Occasionally during the show, while the rest of the band was engaged in the powerful instrumental sections, Duritz would walk back to his piano and perch himself on top of it, with a wistful contentment as if to say, "Look at what I have created."

Guitarist David Immergluck was slightly more modest as he said, "You know, like anything you just sort of see what happens. When it's good, you just keep doing it." Sure, just a few guys (seven now, to be exact) just getting together on the weekends trying to keep making music. Watching the band in action, it appears as simple as that. Because according to them, it is.

Listeners of the old- and new-school Crows must have gotten what they came for, as stretches of new songs from "Hard Candy," released this past July, were interspersed with enough old staples like "Mr. Jones" and "Anna Begins" to make even the most drunk college kid get up and dance. The diversity of the audience was apparent as well-inebriated college students were seated next to a father who had brought his two middle school-age daughters … you get the picture. Everybody goes, everybody hears what they want, everybody leaves happy, including the guys in the band themselves.

Returning to the Amherst area after their stop at Smith College last year, Counting Crows is no stranger to the women's college scene. Duritz's between-song banter eventually arrived at that very visit, as he commented on walking around the campus "surrounded by 1,000 beautiful girls. A thousand beautiful intelligent girls. I thought, this is what I'd like to have at my house," and he wistfully laughed to himself, "No, that's a really bad idea."

Immergluck commented on some of the members' single status as our conversation turned to a "band on the road" scene reminiscent of the movie "Almost Famous." "Yep," he joked, "that's exactly how it is." But after his momentary daydream he settled back into reality: "No no, I'm afraid it's all fat-free cookies and sparkling water now." Although the Crows may appear on the tamer side of the rock and roll star lifestyle-with audience members' ages ranging from our younger siblings to our parents-they make no claim of innocence. Immergluck admitted, "Half of us have families and half of us are lone wolves on the prowl … Be careful girls!"

And how fortunate that they keep coming back to Amherst, where college-aged women abound. "Some of us don't really notice," said Immergluck, "and some of us just LOVE playing in Amherst."

And still the question remains: what exactly is the heart of their appeal? Why is it okay for Duritz to roam so freely from the recorded versions of songs, occasionally on the verge of spoken word as if he were a drugged-up beat poet? How do they manage to make an accordion pumping alongside the spectacle of Duritz's new coif look so damn cool? The band's recipe for success is simple: Duritz's fanciful yet poignant lyrics, mixed with a thoroughly enjoyable six-man rhythm section, accompanied by a strong and well-maintained connection with their fans. Simply put, the Counting Crows are not afraid to get close in. "We like our fans, our fans like us," said Immergluck. "They're not too invasive, we like to go hang out with them after the shows."

Duritz has never been a stranger to his fans, whether it's in person or via the band's website. Want to know what a song is about? He'll tell you. Wondering how the tour is going? He sends frequent updates, personal letters to his fans that have an eerie sense that they really were written just to you.

The perfectionists that they are, "Hard Candy" has taken the Counting Crows one step further along their evolving musical complexity while maintaining their attention to detailed, albeit sometimes hidden, storytelling and has granted us entrance a bit deeper into Duritz's inner psyche. More specifically, the psyche of an insomniac, whose sleep-deprived visions of Miami, Spain or Los Angeles in the early morning hours all appear on the new record. "This album is about memory," he said. "When you join a band because you can't seem to stay home or when you step off the edge of the world ... what you have left is memory." Likewise, he writes of coming across a photograph of an old girlfriend, using it to find solace in memories in order to get by.

Some members of the audience were likely just along for the ride, perhaps UMass students with nothing else to do on a Saturday night. But it was not uncommon to see someone at last weekend's concert returning to see the Crows for a third or even fourth time. It appears that once Duritz lures you in, you're in it for the long haul. In the new track "Goodnight, L.A." he sings, "And what brings me down now, is love / 'Cause I can never get enough." Much like a recurring memory, many Crows fans have an addictive relationship with the band, buying a ticket every time they're in town, like an old photograph that you just can't manage to put down.