Dar Williams
Dar Williams
CCA, Glasgow
Rob Adams
YOU get more than just songs in a Dar Williams gig. That's probably true of the majority of singer-songwriters, but Williams has a way of sharing quite a lot of her life with her audience so that her time on stage isn't so much a performance as an illustrated conversation.
This can mean that there's more detail than really required on the light fittings and dimmers her husband installed in the house he built for the couple and their family, added to some breathless expositions on life in a college town and New York City dwellers' obsessions with the best places to source wine, olive oil and coffee.
Set against those here, however, were a sincere eulogy to Williams' recently deceased neighbour Pete Seeger, as well as a charmingly self-deprecating memory of a lesson from Joan Baez on the perils of introducing, with naïve glee, a song called The Christians and the Pagans in pre-peace agreement Belfast.
The songs themselves, and the singing of them, also proved a mixed success and her guitar playing was bit too bashy for some of her material. Williams has a liking for sliding up to falsetto lines and doesn't always pull them off comfortably. While it would be good to report You're Aging Well, from her first album some 20 years ago, is doing as the title suggests, it sounded as if it had seen better days.
She was on strong ground with her cover versions, though, revelling particularly in Fred Eaglesmith's Wilder than Her and bringing opening act, Belfast duo Malojian, back for a harmonious version of Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin'.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article