After Two Years, Nancy Atlas And Her Band Are Ready To Rock Bay Street

It’s been a long time coming — two years and three months to be exact. But come this Friday and Saturday night, the Nancy Atlas Project will bring the beloved Fireside Sessions back to Bay Street Theater for a pair of back-to-back nights that will rock the house.

The Fireside Sessions are an annual East End tradition that Atlas, a singer, songwriter and kick-ass guitarist, instituted at Bay Street Theater back in 2014. Designed to coincide with the dark, cold nights of January when the year-round population gets restless and is in need of some fun, each Saturday of the month, Atlas, her band and a rotating slate of world-class special guest musicians have satisfied the itch for live jams by taking to the Bay Street stage and heating up the crowd with their all-out raucous performances.

But when COVID-19 came to town and shut down all live entertainment beginning in March 2020, the Fireside Sessions went on the back burner for two years. Then, just as the series was slated to resume this past January, a spike in the omicron variant of the virus put a halt to those plans as well.

Until now. On April 8 and April 9, the Nancy Atlas Project is returning to the Bay Street house and nobody could be happier about that than Atlas herself.

“We’ve had four concerts in January, now we’re doing two back-to-back shows in April,” Atlas explained in a recent phone interview. “It’s really a heralding in of the season and a celebration of music. People ask, ‘Which night should I go to?’ I say either one will give you the fix.”

That’s because though each Fireside Session concert will be somewhat different, they both rely on Atlas and her stellar line-up of musicians, including Johnny Blood on lead guitar, Brett King on bass, Joe Delia on keys and Phil Bloom on drums, along with special guests Randi Fishenfeld on violin, Danny Kean on keys and vocals, and, on Friday night only, Clark Gayton on trombone.

Atlas notes that the music on offer at this weekend’s concerts will reflect the mood of the day, with time-tested band favorites served up alongside brand new tunes marking new beginnings.

“I realized last year, people really wanted a combo — they want the fresh start, but also some comfort in the bit of nostalgia in a band and what a band does,” said Atlas. “I didn’t expect that when we started playing, I was into the ‘new year, new shows’ idea. So this will be a mix, but the basis is a celebration of the musicians on the stage and for me to make music and see friends.”

“It’s the heralding in of having live shows, being together and celebrating some life,” she added. “I think everybody needs it.”

As a warm-up of sorts to get back in the groove of live gigs, Atlas and crew recently made their way into Manhattan to play at The Loft, a 200-seat venue at City Winery. For Atlas, it felt great to be back on stage again, especially in New York City, where the band was just starting to develop a following when the pandemic struck. Now, though it feels like she’s starting all over to build relationships with the venues and audiences there, at least it’s happening.

“It was an absolute win and an absolute delight to get back in the saddle,” Atlas said of the recent gig. “We had some shows last summer, but I don’t think people fully realized the first to fifth gear back and forth, stop and start it’s been for all artists.

“It’s lovely to start again and to feel like it’s going in a direction it will keep going,” she added. “Coming home from the show in the city, I said, ‘You gotta start somewhere.’ Otherwise, if you analyze it, it’s so overwhelming.”

Still, there is a bit of caution in the air in terms of live performance. Chalk it up to too many instances in the last two years when musicians and fans have been whacked back down by COVID surges just as they thought it was safe to get out in public and start making music again.

“I guess we’re all a little tentative and moving slowly,” Atlas said. “We all felt that in September, we were heading into a much different winter. I don’t think anyone saw omicron coming. Given the ethical reality of doing those shows in January, we aired on the side of caution.

“The feeling on the street is much better than a year ago, but people are respectfully still finding their way back to indoor locations, and I understand that,” she added. “At The Loft, we had a really solid turnout, but two years ago we were selling out that room every time we played. While we didn’t sell out, there were people there who wouldn’t have been there a year ago.”

Atlas has spent a lot of time weighing the benefit vs. risk of live performances in recent months, and last summer on the East End, her band offered several outdoor shows as well as a couple of indoor concerts at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett. But she admits she wasn’t without her critics.

“I got more than one letter about the ethical responsibility I had as an artist to having shows inside,” Atlas said. “I replied, ‘Respectfully, I hear you, I agree. I am trying to make it as safe as possible, with vaccination only.’

“But there’s an elephant in the room, and that’s the mental health crisis going on. The circle of art where people give us energy and we give them energy back, it’s a very real and very healing thing,” she added. “I don’t have to tell my people that when they go to see their favorite act, you leave feeling better or inspired or more hopeful.

“I would like to remind people to definitely go to shows within their own comfort level. But they should also remember that live music offers a very real medicine that you can’t buy over the counter.”

For Atlas, getting back in front of a live audience at Bay Street Theater is the perfect way to administer a dose of that musical medicine, and after two years of starts and stops, she’s more than ready to get the show on the road.

“I love Sag Harbor, I really do. It holds a special place in my heart. There’s an enormous amount of artistic history,” she said. “This is a tip of the hat to the love I know the town has provided me with, I think like the show in New York, we need to get the conversation going again.

“I’m more concerned about inflation than COVID right now,” she added. “I can’t believe the perseverance of our musicians and artists. Period. We are bad-ass mother truckers.”

Fireside Sessions with the Nancy Atlas Project returns to Bay Street Theater with 8 p.m. shows on Friday, April 8, and Saturday, April 9. Tickets are $40 to $50 at baystreet.org. Bay Street Theater is on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor.