For its past anniversary gigs, 15 60 75 The Numbers Band would fill the stage with many of the musicians who’ve surrounded brothers Robert and Jack Kidney and Terry Hynde over the years.

The Numbers’ number of musicians tops 20 and includes such luminaries as Devo cofounder Gerald Casale and Waitresses’ founder Chris Butler, who both played bass at different times alongside Robert Kidney, guitar and lead vocals; Jack Kidney, harmonica, guitar, keyboard and vocals; and Hynde, saxophone.

As the band prepares for its 55th anniversary concert on March 8 at The Kent Stage, Robert Kidney said he wanted to keep the focus on the current lineup.

“I’m featuring Bill Watson, my bass player, and Clint Alguire, my drummer, because they’re the ones who got us to the 55th,” he said. “They’re also the guys who got us to the 50th. I’m specifically talking about them and going to honor them because my brother and Terry and I, we wouldn’t be playing if it wasn’t for them.”

There’s one other group that the band wants to celebrate — its supporters — and the wordsmith is very particular about not calling them “fans.”

“Fans comes from the word ‘fanatic,'” Kidney said. “They’re not fanatics. They’re not followers. If you know this music, you know these people do not, would not follow anything. They’re really individuals and intelligent, and they’re looking for something that we do. They’re actually patrons, not in the sense that you might think a bar has a patron, but I’m talking patrons of our art, the supporters of our art. They take money out of their pockets, they give it to the bar owners, they buy food, they buy drinks, they pay the admission, and they put money in our pocket. And they’ve been doing it for 50 years. I think that’s really important, and that’s why I honor that.”

The Numbers Band played its first gig in July 1970 at The Cove in Kent, about two months after the Kent State shootings.

“The whole town was closed down, and nothing was going on, so they had this battle of the bands at The Cove, and some bands came and did an all-nighter, and we battled for the spot of house band, and we won.”

The Numbers Band has a blues foundation, but it takes those roots in often unexpected directions, from jazzy to discordant. Those sounds accompany dark, incisive lyrics, and Robert Kidney’s delivery has a theatrical quality, not in the way that glam rock is theatrical, but ominous and even menacing at times. He’s a singer-songwriter who realizes the pause he puts between certain words can have as much impact as the words themselves.

Its music is uncompromising, something that Kidney said he believes influenced some of the Kent-Akron-Cleveland acts who achieved national and international acclaim.

“The answers I have sound like I’m bragging, but I’m just telling you what I’ve been told and what I’ve read,” Kidney said. “We were first … We were kind of like an example. Look, you can get away with this. You can do your own music. You don’t have to play top 40. You don’t have to play covers. You can do what you want to do, and people will enjoy it and come to see it. And it encouraged people to do that, to start their own band.”

The Numbers Band always will be associated with Kent, but the group has many connections to the Mahoning Valley. David Robinson, who was the drummer on the first few albums and died in 2008, grew up in Warren.

The band also regularly played gigs in Youngstown, including Cedars Lounge and Penguin Pub. Kidney said his favorite Youngstown venue was the Peace House, an unofficial club / speakeasy near Wick Park. The Numbers Band was playing the night Youngstown police decided to raid it.

“It was hilarious,” Kidney said. “That’s a rough area. I don’t know what they were expecting, some kind of serious thing — weaponry, drugs, whatever. We’re playing our music to this small group. This beautiful old home probably held about 35 people, something like that, but we loved playing there because there were no distractions. They came to hear the band. They loved the band. It was a great experience.

“They (the police) come in, and these guys look like football players, and what they’re witnessing is a bunch of old people sitting around. It’s kind of like they’re going to bust the library … It was upside down from what they were used to, but she still got ticketed.”

Kidney said he loved playing Youngstown, and he even wrote a song about the city called “Rails Run to Rust” about the workers who built the city and the surrounding towns and were left behind when the economy collapsed:

“I built your office building

Brick on brick

But I can’t afford its doctors

When my kids are sick

I can’t afford a meal in your restaurant

As you look down on me with disgust

These rails run to rust”

For the Kent Stage show, there will be a couple of guests, Butler and guitar player Michael Stacy, and a setlist spanning the group’s career, but it also will include a couple of new songs and a focus on the current lineup, which has no plans to call it quits.

“We’re standing here,” Kidney said. “Our music is in the moment, so we’re looking toward the future, what’s left of it. We’re still writing and we’re planning on recording later on this year, so we’re still moving forward.”

If you go …

WHO: 15 60 75 The Numbers Band

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. March 8

WHERE: The Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St., Kent

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $25 and are available online at kentstage.org.