If Midlife Chrysler isn’t careful, somebody’s gonna get hurt. Burlington’s over-the-hill rock band is playing to a capacity crowd at Nectar’s, and the dance floor is packed with fans. White collars and blues are out there throwing caution to the wind — and quite possibly, their backs out of alignment.

“Never heard of them?” a white-haired, red-faced Brooks Brothers guy yells to a balding first-timer. “Be ready for some songs you haven’t heard live for a while.” By the time the band strikes up “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” the new guy is in air-guitar heaven. He doesn’t sit down until the set ends with “Love Potion Number 9.”

“This is something everybody secretly wants to do,” says lead guitarist Sam Falzone, 47. “We went over the line and did it.”

Midlife Chrysler is the real item: long-time rockers — each over 40 — who love the music of their youth, and finally have time to play it. With family routines and careers in place, they’re picking up where their musical dreams left off when they went establishment 20 years ago. Some members are pros, a few are veterans of ’60s bands; others admit they’re “not the most talented bunch of individuals.” But together, they deliver.

Okay, it’s a little weird to hear adults singing adolescent-themed lyrics, and some tunes have tighter times ahead. But three notes into “Sunshine of Your Love” these guys will rouse your inner boomer and make you believe you enjoyed the ’60s. Just ask Joan Baez, who showed up after her Burlington concert and danced for an hour. “Sam was catatonic,” laughs lead singer Kimberly Eustis.

Together for less than a year, this graying gang of four men and one woman are as psyched as kids to be playing out. Falzone equates the “adrenaline rush of playing in front of an audience” with “being shot out of a cannon.” That excitement isn’t lost on their growing body of groupies. Fifty-year-old businessman Harry Seal drives from Montpelier for every gig because “they just have so much fun doing it. You can tell they’re gettin’ off on it.”

And they are — even offstage. These people simply love being together. The banter is constant. They finish each other’s sentences. Soft-spoken rhythm guitarist Ed Haase dryly states that starting the band was “the only way I could get invited to parties.” Drummer Roger Lambert retorts, “it hasn’t worked.” Haase counters with a claim that the band only hired Lambert, a pharmaceuticals sales executive, because “we felt we had to be involved in the drug scene in order to do rock n’ roll.”

Just two years ago, the idea of serious gigging was a daydream for Haase. At 43, he was content to be a spare-time strummer, full-time husband, father and chief financial officer for Merchants Bank. But his 14- year-old, Asia, declared one day that “my friend Caitlin’s father is just like you. He comes home and plays his guitar and doesn’t play with anybody. You should call him.”

He called. Caitlin’s dad turned out to be Sam Falzone, veteran of numerous Vermont bands by the time he “blew it off” for a housing management job, marriage and three kids. The guitar match-up took hold, and Sunday morning jams at Falzone’s house became a tradition.

Within six months, Falzone’s neighbor, Roger Lambert, started sitting in on drums. Lambert — another businessman dad — had begun his musical career all of three months earlier, when his 40th birthday loomed large enough to inspire a midlife crisis purchase: his first drum set. When a mutual friend introduced the trio to 44-year-old bassist Butch Alexander, Midlife Chrysler was born.

Alexander, a former pro with extensive ’60s credentials in Vermont, had done “the adult thing” at age 20: He put down his bass, got on a social service career path and went the family route.

But the band’s cosmic coup didn’t happen until last January, when they found lead singer Kathy Eustis. Falzone, on a band promo errand, stumbled into the wrong office, and unbeknownst to him, upon an established crooner at one of her day jobs. “You guys wouldn’t be looking for a middle-aged vocalist, would you?” Eustis asked. Wide-eyed, Falzone replied, “How did you know?”

While Eustis, 40, mentions that her 20-year career in the business was “a problem when I was married and on the road five nights a week,” her current male bandmates say they enjoy “nothing but support” at home — and at gigs. Falzone’s 19-year-old son, Guthrie, is a roadie. “It’s pretty cool,” Guthrie says about his father’s music. “If he was in a country band, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

The elder Falzone hopes the band sends a message to his son — and anyone else who is reluctant to go for it. “It doesn’t matter what time of your life, you can reach out and fulfill your dream,” he instructs. For Falzone, it was a ’61 Les Paul SG.

This article appears in The Music Issue • 1995.