Nicole Atkins Played Neptune City at The Stone Pony w/ Rhett Miller and Thomas Wesley Stern, 12/20/13 (PHOTOS)

With Strings Attached

2013 is coming to a close; and, according to an interview she did with Speak Into My Good Eye's Allyson Dwyer, so is a chapter in the career of Nicole Atkins. When asked about her decision to perform her debut album, Neptune City, in its entirety for her holiday concert at The Stone Pony, Atkins replied, "And I just felt as a holiday show, it would be a really nice way to kind of close the chapter on that record, you know, because the new music, it’s very different and it’s disco and prog-rock."

Acknowledging that she could see herself continuing to play some of the songs off of that record live, she added, "...there’s a lot of songs on there I don’t see playing anymore."

Last night at The Stone Pony, Atkins brought along a full band that included David James Rosen and Sam Bey (The Parlor Mob / Black Jesuses) and a three-piece string section to give those songs a proper send-off. She also invited Rhett Miller and Jackson's Thomas Wesley Stern along for the evening. Randee of the Redwoods, who many of us remember from late-80s / early-90s MTV, acted as a sort of emcee.

Thomas Wesley Stern played an approximately 30 minute set to start things off, opening with perennial crowd-pleaser "Fish." The crowd really did get into the band's acoustic, traditional, Americana. They closed out their set by bringing a pair of horns to the stage (Jim Doyle on trumpet, and another Jim Doyle on clarinet and sax) for two new songs, the New Orleans-inflected "Bourbon St. Girl" and foot stomper "Talk Is Cheap."

Rhett Miller of Old 97's followed for a solo acoustic set. Miller is one of our great songwriters, and he's a charming presence onstage. He obviously had many fans in the audience, several of whom jumped at the opportunity to get him a drink when he noticed he'd come to the stage "unprepared."

As I'd hoped, he did "Champaign, Ill." It's not necessarily the most flattering portrait of CoolMom's birthplace, but it did make me smile on the eve of her birthday. In a nod to the holidays, Miller also performed "Here It Is Christmastime" after remarking that John Denver's "Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)" is a terrible Christmas song. More on that later.

Before Atkins came out for her set, Randee of the Redwoods raffled off a giant pelt of some kind along with a pair of tickets to the Nicole Atkins show at Bowery Ballroom on Feburary 13th. Someone named Jill won the pelt and the tickets.

The band took the stage. Strings swelled, and Atkins came out and launched into "Maybe Tonight," Neptune City's opening track. I've said before that not only does Atkins have a beautiful and staggeringly powerful voice; but she's also an expressive and emotive performer, especially when she's backed by a band and freed from having to play the guitar.

As promised, Atkins and her band played through the entirety of Neptune City. The string section succeeded in giving things that noirish feel that characterizes the whole record. When that part of the set was done -- perhaps indicating how she feels about the new direction her music has taken since her debut -- Atkins said, "OK. This is the part of the show where all of you people over there should come over here and all of you people in the back should move up front. Let's have a rock show."

She started the second part of the set with "Vultures" from 2010's Mondo Amore. She also did several tracks destined for February's Slow Phaser including "The Worst Hangover Of My Life" (I'm dying... I'm dying...), "It's Only Chemistry," and the album's funky single, "Girl You Look Amazing."

Things got weird -- in a good way -- as the set wound down. Atkins invited Butchy Sochorow of Splintered Sunlight and Sandy Mack onstage to help with a cover of "Shakedown Street," calling it the last song of the evening. Following that, Rhett Miller joined Atkins for "one more song," a song about "my god" Tequila. Then, Liam Moroney -- and, eventually, Rhett Miller -- joined her on "Silent Night." After an aborted attempt at "Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)," which Miller good-naturedly refused to play any longer after about the second verse,  Atkins and Miller did a duet on Miller's "Fireflies."

Atkins and her band then played the actual show-closer, Mondo Amore's "The Tower," during which I'm pretty sure Atkins shook dust from the ceiling with her voice.

So that closes the book -- partially, for now -- on the major label portion of the career of Nicole Atkins. She made a great debut record for Columbia. Now, following her sophomore release, she's on to new things with her new, crowd-funded label, Oh' Mercy! Records and LP, Slow Phaser. She definitely knows how to throw a going away party.

I haven't taken too many pictures lately, so last night I went on kind of a binge. Here are some highlights of what I managed to get.