When James Valentine was growing up in Lincoln, there weren't a lot of concerts at Pershing Auditorium. But he swore that if he were ever in a band big enough to play arenas, he'd make sure his group played a show there. That's just what's going to happen Monday night. Valentine has gangstered Lincoln onto Maroon 5's tour schedule.

"It was very Suge Knight," Valentine said with a laugh, referring to the notoriously thuggish rap record company owner. "I had to resort to those type of threats. I dangled our agent out a window until he promised to book us a Lincoln show." Whatever tactics Valentine actually used, they worked. And the Lincoln stop makes for an almost funny anomaly on the schedule of Maroon 5's first arena headline tour.

The tour started in March in Los Angeles and has already played Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Detroit and St. Louis. It will go on  to Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix and back to the L.A. area before heading off to Europe.

Tucked in the middle of all those big cities is little Lincoln and relatively tiny Pershing Auditorium, which, not surprisingly sold out weeks ago.

"It has been an actual lucid childhood fantasy to play Pershing Auditorium," Valentine said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "Of all the fantasies I've had, coming back to play Pershing Auditorium is one I've had since I was 10 years old. … It's very trippy that it's really happening."

Not only is Valentine fulfilling his fantasy, he's returning to Lincoln as part of a multi-million-selling band and a Grammy winner.

In February, Maroon 5 performed on the Grammy telecast's nerve-wracking opening medley, then an hour or so later picked up the Best New Artist Grammy, one of the most prestigious of the recording industry's awards.

"It was really cool," Valentine said. "I guess I had expected to lose. Because of us being up for all these different awards, I'd psychologically prepared myself that we wouldn't win so I wouldn't be let down. So I'd never thought about what it would be like to win. It's a much bigger deal than I ever expected. I didn't really realize how big a deal it is.

"As soon as they called our name and we went backstage, it was clear I didn't understand the amount of attention it would get us. I never usually get recognized on the street, but people have been coming up to congratulate me. I'm like, ‘Wow.'"

With the Grammy win, Maroon 5 continued hobnobbing with the stars of the music industry at the string of afterparties that are more fun than the actual ceremonies.

 Valentine fulfilled another lifelong dream when he got to jam with Herbie Hancock at a party at Prince's L.A. mansion. But his most surreal star moment came a few hours after the band picked up its little gramophone.

Maroon 5 was at a post-Grammy party hosted by U2 when Valentine turned around and saw a very familiar face — Mike Mogis, another Lincolnite, who produces Bright Eyes and plays in the live version of Conor Oberst's critically acclaimed band.

"It was one of those moments where I go, ‘Wait a second,'" Valentine said. "From your (Mogis') basement when I was 15 to here … it was like ‘Who are we?' and ‘What's going on?'"

While Bright Eyes has gotten much media attention of late and is doing well for a band on an independent label, Maroon 5 has been a huge commercial success.

Songs About Jane, the band's 2002 debut album, has now sold 9 million copies worldwide.

"It blows my mind," Valentine said. "It's a staggering number. I can't even begin to wrap my head around it."

Those kinds of sales, radio play of singles "Harder to Breathe," "This Love" and the Grammy-nominated "She Will Be Loved" and three years of constant touring on their own — starting in the proverbial van — and in opening slots, including one with Valentine's music school friend John Mayer, have propelled Maroon 5 to the top of the pops.

Now the question is: Can the band avoid the cliched but common sophomore slump?

Maroon 5 began writing songs for its second album before the tour began in March. After the tour ends, they'll begin to make the record, Valentine said.

"I definitely feel like the Grammy and all the success has really put a lot of pressure on us to prove ourselves," Valentine said. "We've always felt that pressure internally, but now we are feeling it externally. But that's fine; we're confident. If we don't sell 10 million records again, I don't think any of us will be all that disappointed. We understand how crazy this world is."

For a kid who learned to play "Smoke on the Water" in a group guitar class at the old Schmitt Music in Gateway Mall, heard the blues at the Zoo Bar, honed his jazz chops with members of the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra and played gigs at Duffy's Tavern with his last Lincoln band, Square, that's a good kind of pressure.

"Just having been so far outside this whole thing, then finding myself in the middle of it, I really appreciate what I have," Valentine said. "My goal was to play guitar and to make a living playing guitar. All this stuff is far beyond anything I imagined. Being from Nebraska really has helped in that respect."

Monday, Valentine will be back home, playing the show he's wanted to play since he was a kid.

Sometimes dreams really do come true.

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.

If you go

What: Honda Civic Tour featuring Maroon 5 with special guest The Thrills

Where: Pershing Center, 226 Centennial Mall South

When: 7 p.m. Monday

Tickets: SOLD OUT