MUSIC / THE WEDDING BAND : Good as Gold : The group packs ‘em in at the Beach Shack, playing all covers, all the time.

It’s more fun than a wedding reception, and here’s the best part: No one has to get married. It’s the ultimate Santa Barbara party--the Wedding Band. Actually, with years of experience, its name is growing, along with its repertoire; now it’s the World Famous Wedding Band.

Whatever you call it, it’s a dance-a-thon that’s transacted every Tuesday night at the Beach Shack.

If you get to the Beach Shack a bit early, say 9 p.m., the price is right. It’s free, but a bit later, the price skyrockets to three whole bucks.

They could probably sell lots of T-shirts--they sure sell a lot of quarter beers, which are hard to turn down until you taste them. Selling the stuff cheap is a common enough ploy that really works. The cut-rate brewskis last until 10 p.m., when the price goes up.

“Those stupid college kids will drink anything. They just want alcohol,” the deejay said, busily playing James Brown so loud that the Godfather of Soul himself could probably hear it back in Georgia.

Once upon a time, the Beach Shack was the Beach House, then the Pacific Coast Dance Company, and who knows what else in between.

One thing is clear, the mostly college-age clientele knows where 500 Anacapa St. is. Inside the door, there’s a large room with a small bar, a long line, a pair of bartenders and a two-beers-per-person rule.

Around back, there’s a large outdoor patio under a couple of large shade trees with plenty of places to sit. The adjoining room with a much larger bar, a big dance floor and the stage, is locked until 9:30.

As the place gradually filled up on one recent Tuesday night, the 10 o’clock hour came and went.

“It’s our gig--we start whenever we want to,” a guy in the band said.

The 10 p.m. show began promptly at 10:20, or right on time by rock ‘n’ roll standards. There are eight or nine guys in the band.

Except for singer Spencer Barnitz and trumpet player Nate Birkey, the band members are sort of older guys, making for some geezer rock, since most of the people at the club are young.

No band T-shirts, no stickers, no name on the drums, no original hits, but the band is a hit. All covers all the time, featuring Barnitz’s one-octave voice that works--that’s the Wedding Band.

Appropriately, the Wedding Band began with a spacey rendition of “The Wedding March,” which is just “The Funeral March” with a better beat.

By the time the next song, “Low Rider,” was half over, the dance floor was totally packed and stayed that way the rest of the sweaty evening.

Everyone in Santa Barbara, it seemed, was there.

Not bad for a Tuesday night. The other clubs in S. B. pretty much concede Tuesday night to the Wedding Band, since there’s not much going on elsewhere unless you count karoake as a viable alternative to anything other than a coma in prison.

“They do the same show every week, but it works,” one gnarly bouncer said.

“Iko Iko,” the Dixie Cups’ biggie from the early ‘60s, whipped the dancers into a frenzy, and Barnitz even knew all the words.

Barnitz, usually the Spencer of Spencer the Gardener every night but Tuesday, made the mistake of honoring a request by some deranged person in the crowd.

As far as I’m concerned, the song “Copa Cabana” wouldn’t be good if Mozart came back to rearrange it and Freddy Mercury sang it.

Then the dance floor got even more packed, making somewhere outside on the sidewalk the closest available dance spot. The band cranked out tunes such as “Mustang Sally,” “Woolly Bully,” “Mexican Radio,” two versions of “Brown-Eyed Girl” and all those other songs that live long and prosper on AM radio.

The Wedding Band could have played chain saws and the crowd still would have danced. And if you can’t meet a mate-of-the-moment at this gig, you might as well get cable, stay home and just forget the whole thing.

“My places are party scum pits,” said Gary Baldwin, who also owns the Ketch across the parking lot on State Street. “There are 40,000 college students in this town and that’s the clientele I attract. The students are a lot hipper than the locals. The people from Santa Barbara are trust fund kids or starving musicians. I go for a rocking, aggressive college scene. My places are fun.”

A highlight of the evening happened when Barnitz spied Marjorie Extract in the crowd. She’s the powerhouse vocalist of those rockabilly ragers, J. D.’s Last Ride. They did a couple of cowboy songs and everybody loved it.

The Wedding Band began almost a decade ago at Joseppi’s, a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar on State Street. Except for a year or so when it went on hiatus, the Wedding Band has been doing the Tuesday night thing ever since.

About six months ago, the band moved to the Ketch, a place that is supposed to hold 220 people and thus is a much larger venue than phone-booth-sized Joseppi’s. The Wedding Band packed the Ketch too.

Now, for the last month, it’s the Beach Shack, which holds more than 500. It too is packed. You couldn’t have gotten Don Knotts in there with a shoehorn.

What’s next, Robertson Gym at UC Santa Barbara, then the Forum?

“The Wedding Band outdraws Spencer the Gardener,” Baldwin said by phone, unable to attend and home counting his accountants, who were counting all his money.

“No, they don’t,” Barnitz said. “That was the smallest turnout this month, anyway.”

The Wedding Band played until about 1 a.m., or two long sets, then set the beautiful people of Santa Barbara free to fend for themselves on the streets, where cops circled like land sharks at a blood bank.

“Oh my god, they’re just classic,” gushed the dancing barmaid, who had a ride home and pretty neatly summed things up.