Michelle Shocked at Hugh's Room

Her guitars are on their way to Cleveland, along with one of her back-up singers and all her CDs. The other two vocalists are for whatever reason on their way home. So Michelle Shocked appeared at Hugh's Room Tuesday night with a pair of borrowed guitars and no merchandise. She did, though, have a concept. Abandon the set list. Start at the letter Z and work down to the letter A, and try to do a song for each. For those letters with no songs, she took some requests.

It was a beautiful, rich, playful and generous show. She even invited an audience member to join her on stage and play Strawberry Jam. Perfect.

She asked, "What do politics and music have in common?" "Both are too important to be left to professionals."

She played old songs, new songs, famous songs, obscure songs, songs we could sing along with, bluesy songs. She even called up her lover on her cell phone, had an audience member hold the phone, and sang a song to him.

On the 5 fish anchovy scale, I give this show buckets and buckets and buckets of salties, really tasty salties too.