While many people spent New Year's Eve on a couch milking a beer and watching Howard Stern's pay-per-view special, the members of Don Caballero had a slightly more engaging evening.

For a band that usually performs in small venues in front of a couple of hundred fans, Don Caballero found itself playing in Detroit to a gathering of 6,000 anonymous faces -- people who probably scratched their heads when the band began playing its set without its lead singer.

They don't have one.

Guitarist Ian Williams summed up the experience of opening for Rage Against the Machine and Helmet -- two bands with vocalists nonetheless -- as fun, yet ridiculous.

"We were in this huge hockey arena so we could act like Motley Crue for a day," Williams said. "There were a lot of coins flying at us and they had that instant pit-thing going."

For Williams, drummer Damon Che and guitarist Mike Banfield, the evening was a fitting end to an unpredictable year. The New Year has apparently brought them back to familiar haunts. The Pittsburgh-based band will bring its power chords to the Wesley Student Center, 256 E. College Ave., tonight for a show, with local group Glendale kicking off at 8 p.m.

Named after a character immortalized on "SCTV," the band, formed in 1991, still finds itself billed as enigmas because of its disinterest in enlisting a vocalist. Yet Williams doesn't see much difference between his band and others that have a front man jumping around the stage with a microphone.

"A lot of bands today will sing for 2.3 percent of a song, and then jam the rest of the song out," Williams said. "The only lyrical expression for us is in the titles."

The lack of a singer has only pushed the band to work three times harder to keep the music spontaneous, Che said. Banfield, a former Penn State student and former member of State College legend Slag, added that it has also given them more room to experiment.

Banfield's point is well taken -- it would be hard to imagine such songs as "Rocco," "Belted Sweater" and "For Respect" structured around a vocalist. The band's heavy guitar lines and driving drum beats easily establish a mood or emotion that a singer would probably only repeat to no end in incessant ravings.

"The bottom line is that it is not neccessary to have a singer to be a good band," Banfield said.

After recording an album's worth of material early last year, the band was signed to Touch and Go records and released its fiery debut, For Respect, this past fall. A small tour soon followed, which took the band out West and up into Canada and landed them a feature story in the current issue of Alternative Press.

But with the ups came some downs, most notably the departure of bassist Pat Morris during the summer. Yet the band has played on with a string of bassists, including former Donora member George Draguns and Matt Jensick of Hurl, who will be filling in the slot tonight.

For a band whose New Year's resolutions included washboard stomachs, discipline and to drink more wine than beer, Che also hopes the year brings more shows like the one they played in Detroit.

"We could play in the basement for two hours every night but there is nothing to prepare you for an audience that size," Che said.