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When the curtain raised, there was a sole lantern wandering across the darkened, smoke-covered stage. The sound system rang with the eerie sounds of a creaky ship at sea. From the darkness Michelle Shocked welcomed us aboard.

With admiration and praise, Shocked introduced The Messengers, then made a quick departure. The band played a few tracks, displaying their own song writing skills and musical cohesion. The audience listened patiently as they waited for the little Texan they’d all come to see.

The acoustic strains of “When I Grow Up” came booming out, but Shocked was nowhere to be seen. Then a flash of light and her silhouette was larger than life on one of the ship’s sails in the backdrop.

Among all of this grandeur and production, there was a note of anxiety in the audience that Shocked would offer no personal contact. But she quickly dispelled this anxiety and persuaded much of the audience to get up and dance in the aisles.

She jumped through her faster tracks like “If Love Was A Train” and “On the Greener Side” with The Messengers. Solo, she filled the empty stage with her presence and charisma. Over the repetitious guitar of “Graffiti Limbo,” Shocked recounted the story of a black American artist murdered at the hands of eleven white transit police in New York.

Oddly enough, an interval was announced just as the concert began to really swing. I feared this would kill the momentum and feel of the performance. But it proved to be just the opposite.

Shocked reappeared, solo to do “Memories of East Texas,” then sang the haunting “Ballad of Penny Evans.” It’s a tale of a twenty-one-year-old Vietnam War widow and her grief and suffering. Shocked’s voice, wrought with emotion, was so beautiful that the audience sat in perfect silence, overwhelmed by her talent.

Rejoined again by The Messengers, Shocked grooved through more of her own tracks. She danced with the band and her audience, always smiling her heart-warming grin. Apologising to Paul Kelly, which she need not have done, Shocked sang his track “Everything’s Turning White” almost as well as Kelly himself.

Shocked then invited Kelly to centre stage where he played one of his own tracks. Kaarin Fairfax (alias Mary Jo Starr), Deborah Conway (ex-Do Ri Me) and Shocked, all screamed the backing vocals, some of which were slightly off. In this musical collaboration, Shocked’s enthusiasm and spirit spread all over the stage to create a musical party.

The encore was, of course, “Anchorage.” After this, Shocked dragged The Messengers back on stage for applause. But when the time came for her praise, she took a timid bow and scurried off. This cot behaviour only added to her Texan charm and made the audience drown the Palais in applause for Shocked’s brilliant performance.