Mic check. The band is warming up on the small stage in the front corner of the room. The members fiddle with their amps and tune their instruments as people stream in. Most find their way to the bar in back before finding a seat under the visages of blues greats that line the walls.

“Check one! One! One! Five! Five alive! Yeah, singin’ the blues.”

The lights dim and the band takes the stage. It launches into its first number as a middle-aged woman begins to dance in front of the stage.

She returns to the table where her friends sit and tries, unsuccessfully, to drag her date onto the dance floor. Other audience members prefer to nod their heads and tap their feet as they sip their drinks.

The sound and feel of the room is that of a run-of-the-mill blues joint. The decor matches as well. Most of it, anyway.

A carved dragon head adorns the wall beside the bar. An Indonesian doll stands mutely behind glass on the bar’s corner.

Then there’s the smell. The aroma of Indonesian cooking wafts in from the kitchen behind the bar. No barbecue to go with the booze and blues at this place.

That’s because it’s not just a blues joint. Indonesian restaurant by day, Bali Satay House, 2424 Lincoln Way, turns into a house of blues every other Thursday night.

Iwan Muljadi, the restaurant’s owner, settles onto a bar stool beside the bar and soaks it all in.

“I love the blues,” he says as he points to the satellite radio receiver tucked away behind the bar.

“It’s always turned to the blues station. B.B. King, whatever. I love it all.”

But the radio is turned off in favor of the house band, the Bali Blues Jammers.

“We got together specifically for this,” guitarist and vocalist Matt Woods says during one of his breaks from the stage. He explains that Jeff Hart, the band’s harmonica player and vocalist, put the band together.

Hart says he was acting on the direction of Muljadi and Jammer’s vocalist Rebecca Rollins.

“I think Rebecca Rollins mentioned something to Iwan about hosting a blues jam,” Hart says. “Iwan jumped on it.”

Hart began scouring local talent at shows and jam sessions for the house band last summer. The current six-member lineup was in place by early August. The first blues jam was held shortly thereafter.

After a few songs together, some members of the band take a break as audience members take the stage in their place. Basically, anyone who shows up with an instrument can play. It’s sort of an open-mic night with a great backing band.

“Get the people on the stage, that’s what a Bali Blues Jam is all about,” Hart says from the stage as more performers set up.

And get them on the stage they do. By the end of the night, there have been seven different singers, six guitarists, five drummers, four bassists, three harmonica players and one keyboardist.

“It was an awesome crowd of players,” Hart says later.

The blues isn’t limited to every other Thursday at Bali Satay House, though. Blues musicians are booked along with artists from nearly every imaginable genre.

Hart, who also books performers for Muljadi, says they are trying to offer some diversity to Ames.

Muljadi says there’s a possibility of a weekly blues night starting in 2005, but it will remain an every-other week event through December.

“I always wanted to turn this into a blues bar,” Muljadi says. “My dream has come true.”

What: Bali Blues Jam

Where: Bali Satay House, 2424 Lincoln Way

When: 9:30 p.m. Thursday

Cost: Free