...for a basement house party playing blues/rock?

i have to rent something loud enough to hear vocals over the drums and rest of the band. it's been about 10 years since i've rented this stuff so i have no idea what to get, and i have very little faith in the advice of music store reps, which is where ill be renting from.

any knowledge here on the topic?

I run two 60 watt powered speakers (Yamaha MS60) off a little Behringer 802 mixer and its plenty for vocals and even for some add on stuff like the occasional backing track and keyboards.  

Seems small, but even as loud as our band gets, the speakers are never up more than halfway.  

For a basement, you really don't need more than 100 watts per side.  

For vocals you really don't need more than a 10" woofer.  

Monitors can be nice, but considering the size of the space, I'd skip them and  take a few minutes before hand to figure out how to keep your mains from feeding back.  

In the end, its a basement house party.  Not a venue full of highly critical listeners.   A simple powered mixer and a couple little speakers (or a simple mixer and a couple powered speakers) should do fine.  

Oh come, it's rock n roll guys.  

Just kidding all great advice, I just figured it's better to overkill a little and turn down.  That way, you won't find the PA undersized, and it's too late to change.