Hayley Williams
Franklin Music Hall
421 N. 7th St.
Philadelphia
April 6, 2026
At exactly 8:01 p.m. on Monday night, the room went dark at Franklin Music Hall and a familiar voice boomed over the speakers. It’s a voice we all know well, but not the one we were expecting. We know it from the ads we’re force-fed our entire lives, advising us to take certain medications if we need them, but ghoulishly reminding us that they could cause a series of new health issues or even lead to your eventual death. “Ask your doctor about ego death,” the voice urges. It can help you deal with living in this racist, sexist, white supremacist nightmare.
Then came the screams from the sold out crowd, welcoming the person we were all there to see: Miss Paramore herself, Hayley Williams (Miss Williams, if ya nasty). She opened with fan-favorite “Mirtazapine” from her latest solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. Williams came out swinging, wearing a cream colored graphic tee and sheer skirt paired with lavender heels and her signature headphones. She also came out with something she isn’t known to have on her: a guitar. For longtime fans, this was a clear showing of her stepping into her power. Now, she’s in control of the music.
It was during this song that I felt a welling in my eyes. Not just because I always do when I see her, but because I realized that Hayley Williams and I have grown up alongside each other, and I have been lucky enough to see so many iterations of the woman and musician before me. When Paramore first came into my life, I was a middle school weirdo, an absolute outcast. I favored music heavily over anything else, and Paramore was the first band I found that had a woman leading the act. I was immediately hooked.
Much time has passed, and both Hayley Williams and Paramore as a band have changed tremendously. The band has lost and gained members, Hayley has started a business, and plenty of drama has ensued throughout it all. But, try as it might, a society that hates women so deeply could never make me hate Hayley Williams. The tumultuous relationships and ever-changing sound of the band and artist only made me anticipate what was next even more, and on Monday night it was clear I wasn’t the only one dedicated to sticking around.
And there we were, watching the next evolution of this artist spread her wings, fully leveled up. During “Mirtazapine,” she hit scream notes I’d never heard out of her. When she sang “Ice in my OJ” she threw in a “fuck ICE.” And throughout the set, she went on runs that showed off the strength of her talent. All this, coming from an artist who used to have songs she refused to sing live for fear of losing her voice. From an artist who had started out as a shy teenager trying to carve out a space for herself and her band in a scene completely dominated by men.
Not only does Williams sound good, but it’s clear that she’s having a ton of fun and doesn’t take it for granted. This tour feels different because it is different. She’s playing her new album in full, without cuts to her earlier work. It’s funded entirely not by a label, but by her hair dye business, Good Dye Young. To make the shows as accessible as possible, she did thorough work to prevent scalpers and bots from buying up all the tickets. Without having to say it in so many words, Williams is raising the bar for artists of her caliber, challenging them to make these same changes and strive to take back their music for themselves and for the fans. So while she’s on stage doing big sighs and jumping around, she’s able to enjoy the knowledge that she’s changing the game for the better.
The crowd, of course, was majorly supportive. We thrived in every moment of that hour and a half set, with no clear “winner” as to which song might have been the crowd favorite. The night’s somber songs met the same energy as the more upbeat tracks. “True Believer,” a song that critiques racism in the south, found Williams sitting at the piano and painfully reciting lyrics that hit too close to home: “They say that Jesus is the way but then they gave him a white face / So they don't have to pray to someone they deem lesser than them.” Whereas songs like “Love Me Different” empowered the audience in a different way, proving that we can manifest the love we deserve.
Before leaving us, Williams looked at the crowd tenderly. “It feels very surreal to play this room,” she said (cut to me tearing up, clutching my chest). “I grew up playing this room. This looks very familiar to me in the best way.” I wished I was up front, pushed against the barricade like I always was. But I was glad to know that the front row was represented by the fans I got to know back in the day as we camped out at the Electric Factory, as well as new fans getting to bask in the glory of it all.
The big surprises of the night existed within Philly legend Tierra Whack running out on stage during the last song of the set, “Good Ol’ Days,” and when comedian and podcast host Caleb Hearon came out to sing with Williams during the performance of “Parachute,” the song that closed the show in the encore and has proven to be a uniquely emotional song for her to perform. In previous shows, she has held the hand of a fan to choke out the words. Here, it’s clear she needed a buddy to get through it. We all did.
Seeing Hayley Williams perform solo or with the band is always a memorable experience, but this one was especially cathartic. We all need a good scream right now, and she heartily provided as many of those as my wrecked voice could handle. We need to dance and cry and relate to a stranger. And every so often, or as prescribed, we even need a dose of ego death. Results may vary.
