The bubbly red-headed bartender behind the counter at The Red Room said that Saturday night's band was an exception.
The quartet's name, Caveat, is actually Latin for "an exception to the rule." Caveat boldly flooded The Red Room with exceptional songs that were excellently executed.
They would not stop harmonizing, grooving and creating different sounds. Patrons seated in the balcony smiled. Barflies square-danced, shook their hips and did the twist.
Outside, a young couple was bumping and grinding as smoke rings rose above their cigarettes.
"Caveat! Caveat!" screamed a man who obviously had a couple of drinks in him.
Seth Friesen effortlessly phrased a song about "the car that takes you to jail." The bass and drums were locked in tighter than the grooves of a zipper.
But the most exceptional musician was Kirt Lind, lead guitarist. He was very precise about the notes he played.
While Friesen lightly strummed his axe, Lind handled the complex patterns. He was the Eddie Van Halen of the group.
"We consider ourselves British rock," said Lind, who used his recording arts major to engineer the band's record. "We are influenced by a group called The Doves."
Although Caveat's first set spanned an hour and a half of nonstop originals with much string bending, surprisingly, the guitars never went out of tune.
"We just have really good instruments with lock-in tuning pegs," said Lind, a self-taught guitarist who has been with the band six months. "Actually, I did tune up once, in the corner when no one was looking."
The musicians were well rehearsed and their music stayed on key. Between verses, songs would travel different places when Lind struck a rare chord.
During "Hazel," a song about "living in solitary confinement," Lind fingered a metal object and slid it across the neck of the guitar.
He was specific in choosing which notes to leave out of the solo, which was hot enough to elevate everyone's blood pressure to 200/150. This slide guitar part was cleaner than Martha Stewart's kitchen.
On Thursday, Caveat rocked the patio of La Salle's, opening with a 45-minute acoustic set and closing with a two-hour electric set.
On Saturday, band members jammed until 1:30 a.m Sunday. The group seemed to have an array of original songs that were all good without sounding the same.
Bassist Adam Dieter, whose grooves were funky enough to back up James Brown or Roberta Flack, got the name Caveat from his girlfriend who thought the word described this unique band.
Joseph Minisale can be reached at:
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