Michelle Shocked, Crocodile Cafe, 17 May 2003

Despite living in a city that's awash with great music and great venues, we don't get out as often as we guiltily feel we should. So when we heard that Michelle Shocked was going to play the cozy Crocodile Cafe on Miz Becky's birthday, we decided it was meant to be.

After a great dinner with part of the whole sick crew at Typhoon, we headed up to the Crocodile and joined up with the West Seattle subset.

Just before 9:00, a guy with a purposeful look came by with Ms. Shocked in tow and whisked her into the little room by the stage that serves as a green room. About fifteen minutes later, she and the band took to the stage.

Or took over the stage. They rocked. She showed the full range of her music and her voice, from delicate ballads, to slamming rockers that showed her years as a punk rocker, to a country hoe down. "Y'all know what a hoedown is?" she asked. A woman shouted out "Well, I've got my ho here!" Michelle tried to keep a straight face as they started the song, lost it, and mumbled "yeah, yeah, I heard it too."

She had brought along a couple of performers from the Second City/Firesign Theater orbit who established a sort of frame story for the show, pitching it as a USO show for the Shocked and Awe tour. Each time they came on it was another bit of political satire, usually dead on and hilarious. Michelle explained later that she had spent the whole war waiting for someone in the mainstream media to represent the counter viewpoint. Since she never did, she decided to bring that viewpoint with her, so that at least some people would hear it.

The woman, 'Martha Raye-of-light', was winding up a list of the terror alert colors ("blue: something might happen. Yellow: no really, something might happen.") when someone shouted "We want to hear Michelle!" She moved on nicely ("So do I, but...") and then Michelle came on, making faces and pointing sideways at the person who had shouted out, and who was proceeding to shout "Michelle, we want to hear you play!" A couple of other people joined in. Michelle stepped up to the mic: "All of you are fucking assholes." There was a general cheer, and we moved on.

One of the things I loved about this show was how much the band was into it. As Miz Becky said, "it seemed like they were really excited to get to play with her, and full of respect for her and her music."

At one point, during Come a Long Way, the guitar player (on the left, below) was so entranced that he got lost and came in late on a break.

Her band, especially the guitar player and the horn player, was excellent. The horn player had one of the more extensive collections of mutes that I've seen.

At about 11:00 Michelle turned to the band and said "OK, boys, I can take it from here." As they trooped off the stage, she took a drink of water, picked up her acoustic guitar, and said "All right... what do you want to hear? I'm not gonna leave until I've played 'em all. You've shown me a lot of love tonight, and that's the truth."

The rest of the show was a conversation between her and the audience. She handed the microphone to one woman, who told a long and sad story about how she had been raised to be strong and not show emotion, and that during one particularly bad summer (both her nephew and her mother died) the only way she could break down that training and let herself cry was to listen to Cold Comfort again and again. And, she went on, now she's been diagnosed with breast cancer, and is going through chemo, and again Michelle's music has been keeping her going. Michelle was clearly touched deeply by the whole story. "You know, I'm always afraid that my music isn't quite making the connection I want it to, and that it becomes just entertainment. And you've given me such a gift with that story. Thank you."

She closed around midnight with a stunning rendition of 5 AM in Amsterdam, joined at the end by the horn player from the back of the room, playing beautiful soaring bell-like notes over the crowd.

All in all, a hell of a show. Funny and touching and rocking and political and beautiful all at the same time. Thanks, Michelle!