Nicole Atkins at Sony Centre for the Performing Arts

Photographs by Sean Chin.

“It’s been a good six weeks,” Nicole Atkins said on the very last day her band was to tour with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (of whom she described as gentlemen to us). At 35, Nicole Atkins has received some recognition but it is obvious that she is content with being a performer and is a true fan of music itself and not the fame. With a dimly lit set and very little pizzaz visually, Atkins appreciated the music she could come up with more than finding ways to win fans over. As a first class performer herself, she encouraged people to stand up and dance after her first song. While this is common for many performers, her instance was in true rock fashion: Against authority. The security asked people to sit down during her set, and she said to ignore security as “this is a fucking rock and roll show”. She even got people to stand up and slow dance in the aisles. I’m not sure if it was Atkins’ that got people to ignore security’s rules during Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ set (as there was a massive crowd in the aisles), but I think her command certainly helped.

The music itself was admirable. There was a range of styles here, with more graceful songs being bookended by shrilling rock anthems. Atkins and her two man group made do with little instrumentation by creating as many layers with just a guitar and a drum kit as they could. The final song, The Tower, was a stop-start noise piece that would explode with chaos and then be followed by whispering mantra. At many a time during this song, the crowd thought the song was done. While it kept going, no one was annoyed that it wouldn’t just end. In fact, I think many of us new fans didn’t want it to. Atkins announced that fans could “shoot the shit” with her at the merchandise stand, and yours truly heard quite a few examples of people who had met her and were very happy to do so. Atkins’ set may be pummeling or multi-perspective in nature, but she herself is grounded and real. She is a fan of female rockstars from the 90’s (think PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and Fiona Apple), many of whom are still relevant today. This is why Atkins herself, a relative newcomer, fits in perfectly with our times and worked very well as being an opener for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.