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She made jam, strawberry jam, at the Civic Center Sunday night – and it didn’t matter that only 800 people came out to help her.

Michelle Shocked rocked, crooned and had a good old time singing about a strawberry jam revolution that would let everyone enjoy life the way you enjoy homemade preserves.

She looks like a cross between the boyish k.d. lang and the lanky Barbara K. of Timbuk 3. She dresses in black from her Greek fisherman’s cap, sleeveless T-shirt and jeans all the way down to combat boots. She’s charming in an aw-shucks kind of way, and sweetly flirtatious as she smiles, pleased, after each song.

Her six-piece band included the usual guitars and drums. But what makes Michelle Shocked special is the unusual element she brings to her electric, punked-out folk. She had a horn section with alto and soprano sax, trumpet and fluegelhorn. Then she was joined by her father, "Dollar Bill," for a mandolin duet.

She hails from the red clay backroads of East Texas, where she got her down-home accent and the Texas Swing influence for songs like Captain Swing and other thigh-slappin’ “swing stuff.” But she took a round-about route to stardom through Amsterdam, where she fled when Ronald Reagan was elected president, to New York City.

The haunting “5 A.M. in Amsterdam” was an interesting contrast to the right-on “Graffiti Limbo,” which is “where you go when there ain’t no justice.”

She belted out gutsy blues in “Too Little Too Late.” Then played with the crowd as she squirted water on a little toy sailboat.

The concert was a refreshing evening of unpretentious and amusing music and politics.

When it was all over, she left with a shout of “U.S. out of Central America.”

This is the revolution as it could be with music, dancing and strawberry jam.