Dar Williams in Portland

I've just come back from another weeknight concert at the Aladdin Theater, this time featuring indie/folk singer-songwriter Dar Williams. You may have heard of her. If not, find out more at her website. With a repertoire of eight albums and a live DVD, she sounds a bit like Shawn Colvin and has had numerous guest artists collaborate on a track or two.

Alison Krauss, for instance, sang with her on the above song, "The One Who Knows." Dar closed the show with it after first explaining that she wrote the song to honor schoolteachers and others who play such an influential role in children's development. The song is even more meaningful, she said, now that she and her husband have recently become the adoptive parents of a little girl from Ethiopia. (They also have a 5-year-old boy.)

If you went only by this song, you'd think it was a laidback evening. You'd be wrong.

Dar Williams is a bundle of nervous energy. When she plays an uptempo song, she's tapping her heel and bouncing on both feet, almost as if she were going to jump off the stage into the first couple of rows. Between songs, her banter is funny, genuine and loopy -- almost to the point where you think she's got ADHD.

She flits from subject to subject. During the evening, we learned, in no particular order:
-- That she graduated from Wesleyan University (Class of '89) in Connecticut, which she described as the Reed College of the East. ("Lots of hippies.")
-- That she's interested in religion, dropping joking references to Buddhism, Druids, Wiccans and Unitarians.
-- That she was drinking Portland tap water on stage instead of the bottles of Talking Rain she was provided. ("I love this city," she gushed.)
-- That during this visit, she went to Eagle Creek and Mount Talbot (she meant Mount Tabor). She even had her hostess, a longtime friend from Vermont, come on stage to sing harmony on a couple of songs.

It's funny. I went tonight, anticipating a mellow performer along the lines of Emmylou Harris or Patty Griffin. Instead, it was almost like Ellen DeGeneres with a guitar and a lovely voice.