Dar Williams connects with Fairfield folk fans

My dad used to play folk music all the time at home. I heard all of the greats: Joan Baez, Emilou Harris and tons of others. Dar Williams was among these voices that drifted across the air and into my ears.

Last Friday night at the Quick Center, Williams’s voice drifted across the air again, but this time from the stage. She was my first time – at a concert, that is. She rocked my socks off.

The most impressive quality of the concert was the storytelling that took place. Between songs such as “February,” “When I was a Boy,” “Spring Street,” “Teen for God,” and the wonderful tune, “The Christians and the Pagans,” Williams spoke to the audience members like they were old friends meeting at the coffee shop where she writes her songs.

She told the crowd about her life, her inspirations and her family. One particularly funny moment was when she described a crazy man talking to her son at a restaurant one day. The unstable man left the restaurant raving to her son, “I hope you find your ice man.”

If you don’t find it amusing, well, you had to be there.

Unlike some of her spoken stories, anyone can relate to stories in her songs. Many relate to events in her life.

Some are humorous, like her way of speaking (which in itself is akin to a spoken stream of consciousness). Others are mournful, regretful tunes of starting over, or being afraid, or of the realization of loss.

Williams can make her listeners laugh and then strum her guitar and make the floodgates in their eyes burst open.

Opening for Williams Friday night was rising star Ryan Fitzsimmons, who has opened for Williams previously, as well as for Ben Folds and Loudon Wainwright III. His performances have received numerous accolades and awards all over the northeastern United States.

His songs, such as “Ashes” and others centered around growing up in Syracuse, N.Y., did not vary in emotion as much as Williams’s did, but they were energetic and (sometimes) angry and fun.

He is young; he will grow and his already-cool music will grow with him.

The Quick Center put on a great performance, too. A simple set with flowers on a table and the singers’ guitars placed on the side helped the audience focus on the music.

All around, this concert was a class act. Catch Williams and Fitzsimmons in concert if and whenever you possibly can.