Last night, Alisa and I went to see 
Michelle Shocked at the Iron Horse in Northampton. There were two opening acts that were good and got the audience fired up and then Michelle took the stage. She played a couple of songs and then introduced her "strawberry jams" idea -- she has a suite of old fiddle tunes her father taught her and she invites anyone would like to jam with her to come up and join in. At first, no-one came up, but pretty soon a couple of the guys from one of the warm-up bands were playing with her. Then a woman with an electric bass joined them -- and someone with a drum. Michelle even offered to let someone play her guitar while she switched to the mandolin. They played a few more numbers, including a rendition of Frankie and Johnny with audience members playing Frankie, Johnny, and the bartender who tells Frankie that Johnny is with Nellie-Bly. The woman who did Frankie had a fantastic voice and actually joined in with singing the song.
Toward the End, Michelle admitted that what she was trying to do was to show that music is like politics: too important to be left to the professionals. With a bunch of people joining in, the music wasn't necessarily polished, but it was interesting and good. "This is what democracy looks, or rather, sounds like." She encouraged people to get active and run Bush and his cronies out of office. Toward the end she told an anecdote about a Texas farmer who cuts his hand and goes to the doctor. While he's waiting, he's talking to Michelle about Bush.
"He's like a post-turtle," he says.
"??? A post-turtle? What's that?"
"Well, when you see a fence post with a turtle sitting on top of it, you know he didn't get up there by his self. And you feel so sorry for the poor bastard that you just want to put him back down."
After the strawberry jam session, Michelle left the stage, but then came back for an encore and played a couple of her classics: Anchorage and Memories of East Texas. A great show.