Nicole Atkins at the Bowery Ballroom 11/14/08

The usual ten-times-better-live-than-on-CD show, with only two drawbacks: the final perfomance of keyboardist Dan Chen with the band, and the creepy stalkerish asshole up front who kept yelling "We love you Nicole!"after every song. Credit him with making this the first (and hopefully last) conversationless live show Atkins has ever given; you could tell she was weirded out by the whole thing. Good news: after an Asbury Park show the day before Thanksgiving, Ms Neptune City is taking time off to work on the next album. Better news: one of the new songs is called "The Tower," and listening to it was like like watching an emotional vocano erupt with a year's worth of therapy sessions compressed into a five-minute primal scream. Devastating.