Madison Square Garden or Soldier Field this certainly was not, but can you think of a more appropriate venue for Craig Terrill, the musician, than a wings-and-beer joint?

Terrill and his band, The Strangers, performed Saturday night at A.J. Wingers on campus, in front of a capacity crowd of a couple dozen at any one time.

This weekend’s gig was originally supposed to be covered by ESPN, as part of Trev Alberts’ "Trev’s Travels." That plan fell through, but Terrill and Co. made the most of it.

"It was great crowd and I thought we played well. It was fun and that’s the most important thing," Terrill said. "It was just something we threw together out of nowhere."

The crowd was significant and lively, made up partially of teammates past and present, post-Halloween revelers and, of course, the obligatory "Free Bird" obsessor. It was an enthusiastic audience, particularly the guy who passed out right in front of Terrill later in the evening, only to resume dancing after someone picked him up and woke him.

I got there right around the scheduled start of the show, 8 p.m., only to find the band waiting in their luxurious green room — a bench on the street in a drizzling rain. There was Terrill — the lead singer and lead guitar man — and his older brother Jason (guitar/backup vocals) and the rest of the band, including an only vaguely recognizable Mike Rhinehart, who’s dropped all sorts of weight since his football career came to an all-too-premature end following last season. He doesn’t play tight end anymore, but he’s a hell of a piano player.

I thought I’d arrived early. I was wrong. There wasn’t a seat, or place to stand, to be found in the main room, which now has a bar that wasn’t there when I was in college. So, my wife and I were relegated to the adjacent room, settling for the occasional peek-in before a haymaker of a headache and work responsibilities sent me home after about an hour-plus.

The part of the show I did catch — about seven-and-a-half of the nearly 40 songs the band played that night — was eye-opening. Terrill has always been a relatively reserved, workmanlike type, around the media anyway. He’s loosened up considerably over the years, but you’d have been floored to see him Saturday night if you’d ever talked to him when he was a freshman five years ago — a completely different person. He’s grown more and more demonstrative on the field over the years, and you can see a little of that flair on stage as well.

The band played mostly a barrage of covers a person with only the most basic knowledge of classic rock would know by heart, opening with The Eagles’ breakup anthem "Already Gone," then breaking into The Rolling Stones’ "Jumpin’ Jack Flash" and on to "London Calling" by punk pioneers The Clash. The rest of the evening — which went at least an hour longer than expected, spanning into the early morning — consisted of a handful of original songs, plus covers of acts such as The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Warren Zevon, CCR, Jimmy Buffett, Tom Petty, Bob Seger and The Who, among others. When was the last time those guys performed with a pitcher of beer jiggling on one of their amplifiers?

I missed the band’s renditions of "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and "Werewolves of London." I wish I hadn’t.

I’m no music critic by any means, but I consider myself relatively knowledgeable. I’ve seen my share of pricey arena concerts and low-end college bands. The Strangers struck me as being pretty good.

Another thing that struck me was how amazing Terrill is.

You know, I’ve seen more than my share of football players over the years who can focus on one thing and one thing only: usually football.

That’s what’s remarkable about Terrill, who’s wise enough to steer clear of the money the band rakes in, like Dracula avoiding daylight, perhaps keeping the NCAA’s long tradition of irrationality in mind. All the money’s being pooled into a new-equipment fund anyway, Terrill said.

Terrill’s been a tremendous player for Purdue, a four-year starter who’s having a huge senior season. He’ll graduate in December with a strong GPA. He’s apparently spent enough time with his guitar and with his band to be pretty good with both. He’s made plenty of time to spend with his family in Lebanon, which is a huge priority. He’s always been one to get up at dawn in the summer to do his conditioning work.

But even Terrill met his match on Saturday. After playing a great game (two sacks) in the afternoon against Northwestern, Terrill took a different kind of stage for around four hours at night.

As soon as the football game was over, Terrill showed up for the post-game press-conference in a Doors T-shirt. You knew then and there his mind had shifted to music. Questions for the Lizard King …

"I was going all-out to win so we could play that night," Terrill joked, noting that the show probably would have been called off had the Boilermakers lost to Northwestern.

Talk about a taxing day.

"I was a little sleepy toward the end of the gig," Terrill said. "But I got in a quick nap after the game and the rest of the band took care of set-up before, so I was OK. It was fun."

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