Dar Williams at The Freight

Dar Williams
The Freight
Berkeley, CA
April 9, 2026

Dar Williams  has been creating powerful, popular, poignant, and sometimes humorous tunes and performing, acoustic guitar in hand, for decades. A doyenne among singer-songwriters, Williams is blessed with a gorgeous voice as well as with a gift for poetic, ethereal lyrics. 

Given the moniker Dar in her childhood (she was born Dorothy), the precocious Williams took up the guitar at age nine and penned her first tune at 11. An interest in drama motivated her to major in theater and religion at Wesleyan University. Williams got her start playing in the Boston 1990s coffee shop scene, where everyone was wondering who would make it. "And many did... There was a lot of sleeping around," Williams confided. These days, Williams has a large number of recordings under her belt, and she teaches popular songwriting seminars. Students (or just anyone curious) can find her entire repertoire of lyrics posted on her website.

Williams returned to The Freight, two friends in tow, for this two-night stand. Pianist, guitarist, and vocalist Seth Glier captivated the audience. Caitlin Thomas, a youthful, New Jersey-based singer/songwriter and producer, who was seated to Williams' left, offered lovely vocal harmonies and gorgeous tonalities from her cello.

Standing alone on the stage, Williams launched into the "Emerald." This reflective, atmospheric song concerns a return trip to the Pacific Northwest; it blended nostalgia together with an expression of appreciation for being in the present moment amidst these luscious landscapes.

Williams and the band continued with an additional twelve tunes, concluding with her popular ballad "Iowa" with its sing-along chorus of "I-owa." Seven songs came from her most recent album Hummingbird Highway (Righteous Babe, 2026), and the eponymous title track was one of the highlights.

Williams had penned the tune following a visit on a Carnival Cruise excursion to a Belizean spice farm. Learning that there was a Belizean road of that name, something just clicked. The song relates that the hummingbird "only likes the sweetest things," and Williams confided to the audience that "I have to eat a lot of sugar." She developed the song as an allegory to the rapid pace of life on the road, which can make things pass by in a blur. The lyrics tell the story of a musician returning to their partner. (Every time you round the bend / I'll jump into your arms again / We'll fly, we'll fly, we'll fly). The returning lover maintains, "The older you feel, it's the older I get," while struggling with depression and "sometimes can't get out of bed."

"Hummingbird Highway" was preceded by "If I Wrote You," which, she told us, is a "really old song." Humorously, she related that "I don't know where it came from," so she supposes it must have been "channeled from the previous resident of the Motel Six in Austin."

The crowd cheered her rendition of "Berkeley," a song penned after a summer she spent there when she was 20. The audience guffawed as she sang that Berkeley denizens "were still mad at Reagan." The verse describing the tech industry—"And now it's commuters / With silver computers / Fed into trains bound for Moloch's machine"—aptly describes our age, one in which technology increasingly works hand-in-hand with militarism. As she told Audiofemme.com in 2021, "I was amazed at how hard Berkeley was holding on to its '60s roots and how much I loved it... The romance of the city, that dreamer mentality... That kind of poetic environment makes for a good song."

"The Babysitter's Here" was another crowd pleaser, one which has become something of a classic for Williams. It relates how her college-bound babysitter advises her to "Do me a favor / Don't go with a boy who would make you choose / And I don't understand, and she tries to explain /And all that mascara runs down in her pain."

Another new song, "What Bird Did You See" largely describes birds "that people told me about." The lyrics relate that "Love will find its way / In the very life you have today."

Williams dedicated "Olive Tree" to "democracy": "While the self-appointed tyrants try to tear it all apart / The olive tree grows in the light of a bright and constant star."

Williams returned to encore with "As Cool as I Am," with its evocative chorus of "I will not be afraid of women." Exiting patrons were overheard expressing their love of and appreciation for the concert.

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