Personally, I think you may be better off going with a recording interface rather than a recording mixer. Some recording mixers offer you zero outputs so you don't have the ability to monitor your mixes. Also they may only be able to record a stereo pair of inputs at a time. I am not 100% sure because I don't use a recording mixer but people have told me about not having the ability to use all 8 inputs at once.
I think that you should check out the Tascam US series. Particurarly the Tascam US-800. It is optimized for mobile recording and works great with a laptop. It has 6 Mic/Line inputs and will probably give you a better start to your recording live. Plus it comes with Cubase LE4.
B&H are unloading these for 100 bucks free shipping
Tascam US-800 - 8 Input, 4 Output USB 2.0 Audio/MIDI US-800 B&H