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Busking came in from the cold and into the State Opera House in the form of Luke Hurley. It was a setting which would overawe many entertainers and certainly seemed to dwarf Hurley. The jokes and audience rapport he can generate when busking were missing as he shuffled nervously around the stage. Some well-written songs and excellent guitar playing, but overall, a disappointment. Sunshine came to the stage in the form of Michelle Shocked and backing musician, Wayne Goodman. Three well-positioned ex-Admiral Cup yacht sails and some very clever lighting, which traced a day from dawn to dusk, meant the two musicians dominated the large Opera House stage. Shocked sings melancholy slices of a life spent first in East Texas, and then on the road.

Her early influences, Texas blues and country music, ran deep in the veins of her oh-so-sweet acoustic set.

Two variations on an old Texan fiddle tune were followed by a bracket of the protest songs that made Shocked’s name.

“Prodigal Daughter,” “Cement Lament,” “In Silent Way,” “God Is A Real Estate [Developer],” and “I Want To Grow Up To Be An Old Woman” [sic] scudded along on the wave of enthusiasm Shocked had created.

Shocked is a genuine raconteuse on stage, the wry smile and the twinkle in the eye buoying the audience along.

“The Ballad of Sister Cindy and Brother Jed,” a cynical account of a disastrous Campus Crusade rally, brought the house down. She had a natural partner in Wayne Goodman, whose big hat and ready grin sparked a few laughs of their own.

No greater indication of how greatly Shocked had the audience in the palm of her hand was her show-stopping version of “The Ballad of Penny Evans,” a song she said she would have problems singing because the subject was too close to her.

She sang the song, the tale of a Vietnam war widow, unaccompanied, the emotion dripping from … [sentence cut off] … then burst into applause which threatened to turn into a standing ovation.

Shocked then set sail for home, closing the main act with the train song, and concluding a two-song encore by anchoring down with “Anchorage.” Shocked then sailed out of town at sunset, but she had brought two hours of sunshine with he