A Mixed Lucinda Williams

“This should be a free world. If we keep working on it, I think we’ll be able to get there,” Lucinda Williams shouted from the main stage on the New Haven Green, a bright yellow light falling over her face as she continued to an endorsement for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. A cool, humid dark had settled over the massive crowd, families applauding from their makeshift picnic tables and lawn chairs. At the front of the stage, a tempered, pseudo-folksy mosh pit had materialized, fans new and old cheering, clapping, and stomping their feet. Williams smiled, and launched into a few favorites from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. 

A newfound fan clad in a turquoise T‑shirt and long jeans pumped his fist in the air and spun wildly with his girlfriend in tow. ​“Yes yes yes!” he cried to the cluster of strangers that had started dancing around him.

Which was funny, because the performance of that song, and nearly every other piece in Williams’ hour-long set Friday night, was a little bit sleepy. Not like the pleasant, warm kind of sleepy that settles around you after a night of partying with friends, which it seemed like she may have done before the concert started. The sleepy that mainstream, big-box musicians generally bring to morning shows set somewhere in New York City because they will, at the end of the hour, still be audience darlings.

It wasn’t entirely her fault. Williams has proven herself time and time again. Her oeuvre is extensive and profound; her lyrics, as smart as they are socially engaged, have left a deep impact on both the 20th-century soundscape and its listeners. Last year’s Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone is so, so much better than anyone is talking about, and she deserves a little wiggle room. If I were introduced in stilted half-accolades as ​“the female Bob Dylan,” or the musician who penned the song that won Mary Chapin Carpenter a Grammy, I also wouldn’t feel particularly warm and fuzzy about revving up a crowd.

But I would be pretty stoked about the prospect of a few thousand people, ready to celebrate the weekend, sprawled out across a big public lawn and low-hanging blue sky. Or the fact that it was the first politically good day for America in what felt like a very long time, and maybe the free world could start with a handful of folks right here.

That crowd, ultimately, made the concert a testament to the many things that are good about the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Warmed up by the Connecticut-based Carrie Ashton Band, thousands turned up ready to de-stress and dance, settle in for some music and food truck cuisine, and reconnect with old friends while making a few new ones. Together, per unspoken annual tradition, they fanned out across the Green to cover it in bright dots of color.

And because of it, what could have been an OK concert given by a great musician turned into a great concert given by one who was having an off-peak kind of night. Close to the stage, couples and singletons alike turned works from Williams’ extensive discography into reasons for an impromptu and public dance party.

Farther back, families celebrated the beginning of summer, teaching tunes like ​“Passionate Kisses” to the musician’s smallest and newest listeners.

Opener Ashton and her bandmates’ outpouring of energy seemed to last the entire evening. Beyond the grit and soul that vibrated from Ashton’s throat to her toes — she perform with her whole body, and it’s as visually compelling as it is aurally — she played off of the audience’s energy, pumping them up to lyrics that were, surprisingly, often incredibly depressing.

And Williams’s set finished strong. The audience pleaded for an encore like Saturday would not come without it. It would have, of course, but maybe not quite in the same way.