G. Love and Special Sauce brought summer early to Harlow's Wednesday night.

A packed house of several hundred people crammed into the nightclub, body heat permeating an otherwise chilly winter night. Button-up T-shirts and hats were popular among the mostly 20- and 30-something crowd, most of whom were ironically watching a Winter Olympics ski event by the bar.

Redeye Empire, a Vancouver-based rock group, left the stage a little after 9 p.m. Anticipation grew for T-shirt clad Garrett "G. Love" and his laid-back, summertime-blues band Special Sauce, while images on TV of a snowy Vancouver mountain captivated the crowd, drawing collective "oohs" and "aahs."

At about 10 p.m., G. Love kicked off his set with "Baby's Got Sauce," which instantly sent the crowd into daze of mellow. It was as if Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz duetted the opening lyrics to the song: "Cooling out, cooling out, waiting for my lady."

Not that the audience wasn't wild - people cheered their guts out after every song. But the combination of the mellow songs and lack of elbow room left gatherers only enough room to bob their heads the whole time.

Throughout the night, G. Love played a number of electric guitars, an acoustic guitar and several harmonicas. Though he was constantly chugging several cold beverages (perhaps Gatorade G?), blowing his nose, and spraying some sort of Chloraseptic down his throat, his persona remained upbeat and charming.

He even performed a couple of freestyles and engaged the audience in cliché hip hop call and responses like "Make money, money, money!"

Special Sauce, made up of drummer Jeffrey Clemens, keyboardist Mark Boyce and new (as of this year) bassist Timo Shanko, played everything from blues to reggae and hip hop. G. Love rapped, sang and played simple blues riffs during songs about basketball ("I-76" and "Shooting Hoops"), life ("The Hustle," and "Still Hanging Around") and sex (in a self-proclaimed "dirty" version of "Booty Call").

Special Sauce's ability to move from jazzy A Tribe Called Quest-like hip-hop beats to simple southern blues was in part due to Clemens' simple and steady drumming. During extended solos on the band's closer and debut 1994 hit, "I Like Cold Beverages," the musicians showed the concertgoers their true talent and eclecticism.

Boyce did his best Wild Bill Davis impression, playing his tone-wheel organ like a madman and utilizing a wah-wah pedal, while Shanko moved from his upright bass to tenor saxophone. Surprising to all, his tone and skill on the tenor matched his slap-bass technique, and he sounded like a riffing Lenny Picket in the altissimo register.

The crowd left dazed and impressed by the Abstract Entertainment-run event around 11:40. Unfortunately, the hot, steaming and buzzed audience spilled out of the club to another winter night.