Dar Williams at Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis (26 April 2015)

Lucy Wainwright Roche

This was the first night of the Lucy Wainwright Roche and Dar Williams teamup, which Dar and Lucy would later disclosed that they knew each other when Lucy was 14 or so. Lucy also talked about her famous music-family surname (Wainwright), jokingly said, “another one of those…” She also warned us that we may hear other Wainwrights, and given the talent that runs in the family, it won’t be long before we hear more from Francis Valentine or Arcangelo (?) in the near future.



Lucy’s show was pretty funny, it was about 80% music and 20% chat. After “Seek and Hide”, she asked if anyone in the audience had any questions. Someone asked her how Church was that morning. Apparently she sang at the Rochester Church that morning. Then someone else asked her about her dog. Hearing her answer her questions, you quickly realize that she has a very personal relationship with her fans. As if they are very close friends or extended family.



My favorite moment on Lucy’s set was her introduction to the Bruce Springsteen cover, “Hungry Heart”. She said she was in Eastern Europe on tour, and they absolutely hated her. One night, no one was participating. Then one guy said she should talk about basketball. So she mentioned basketball and suddenly the Latvians perked up and started interacting with her. It was such a riot that she changed the Springsteen chorus to “everyone’s got a basketball” instead of “hungry heart“. With that said, there was a big audience-participation sing-along for the cover.

Dar Williams

Dar Williams came on around 8:30 and was joined by Josh Kaler (guitar/steel guitar/drummer) and Bryn Roberts (keys). Since it was just the second night the Pledge-funded Emerald, Dar warned us that they were still getting used to the new material. Seeing how the trio handled themselves, I got the feeling that they have been doing this for a long time and was no stranger to changes and improvising when needed.



In typical Dar Williams show, she had stories about all of her songs. These songs were all true stories… and, of course, very few of them are about love – which Dar admitted confessed that she is not a fan of love songs, “It’s just about two people, right?” She doesn’t find them interesting, instead focusing on trying empower women around the world… even asking herself, “What would Taylor Swift do?” when confronted by younger girls who only love popular music from Rihanna, Beyonce, or Swift.

Dar William’s Setlist

Right before the title track “Emerald”, Dar tells us her first show in the area was at St Paul’s Ginko Café. She even knew the date, April 18, 1994. She realized that she needed a toiletry bag and that she was a bad traveler. It’s hard to believe that after 21 years, she was still doing this touring/making music thing, thanks to her dedicated fanbase and support from local Minnesota Music Coalition and KFAI Radio.



Speaking of radio, her introduction to “FM Radio”, she said that the song’s co-writer was Jill Sobule (who is famous for “I Kissed a Girl”). Jill joined Dar on stage the previous night to sing that song on stage. The song was so new that Jill had a fan hold up the lyrics while they sang.



I can go on about all the stories she told, but you really need to attend a Dar Williams to get the full effect. Let’s just say that you’ll learn more and more about Dar Williams the more you see her.



For the encore, Lucy Wainwright Roche joined Dar Williams on stage to sing “Iowa”. For a brief moment, I thought Dar would stay on to sing fan-favorite “When I Was a Boy”, since she eluded to it earlier when she talked about Sobule… but the band just decided to step off the stage. On retrospect, that was probably a good decision since it might have been hard to follow up after “Iowa”.



Dar Williams’ Emerald album is out May 5th. Dar and Lucy are on tour together, at least for a “string of dates”. Please refer to your local venue.