The Atkinsons Website

We were glad to come back to our old stopping grounds at Cafe Diem! We had a great enthusiastic crowd show up! Really appreciated our good friends Dennis Elliott sitting in on fiddle and banjo and Dan Sessler on lead guitar. Oh and thanks to that very nice guy at the bar for helping Dickie and Jamie out with their flat tire! What a bummer!

The Atkinsons were honored to be asked to be a part of Emmyfest II at Capital Ale House! It was a full day of great local music from Moossa, Modern Groove Syndicate, Loose Gravel, Stump Hole Water, Louis Ledford and The Big Guys. Thanks for asking us John, we had a great time and hope the fundraiser was a big success! www.emmyfest.com

ATK hit Shenanigans again and had a big ole crowd show up! We had a great show with a couple surprise guests including our friend Troy Coghill opening the show, and the one and only Ricky Breland setting his bass aside and picking up the guitar to sing some great songs with his wife Rebecca!

We played a double header: Beaverdam Heritage Days and then Cafe Diem that night. Thanks for sitting in with us Dennis and Dan! And thanks to Robin Marschak from Magazine33.com for coming to the show and interviewing us for the November issue!! We can't wait to see it!

It was our first time playing at the Crozet Music Festival and it was awesome! Thanks for asking us Biff! It was held at Misty Mountain Campground, the weather was fantastic and the festival was a blast.

We had a great time playing Massey's Annual Swinetangle BBQ again this year! Thanks for having us!! It was a beautiful day and a great event benefiting VCU Massey Cancer Center.

It was our third year playing at the Annual Bark in the Park event for Henrico Humane Society! We had such a great time; and enjoyed seeing so many awesome dogs! Great to see all the folks that came out to support this great cause.

It was great playing Ashland Coffee & Tea again! We love this place! Thanks so much Truman, Moya and Kay for having us back and for all the folks that came out to see us. Looking forward to coming back in 2010!

Cafe Diem was a blast with our friends Dennis Elliott and Dan Sessler sitting in with us!

We were really excited to play at The National again, along with Southern Funk Orchestra, for Cheenon's CD Release party! We played about a 45 minute set and included a brand spankin new one! We appreciated everyone that came out and cheered us on, and especially to Scott and Mark for coming and shooting pix and vids! Looking forward to seeing them!

We had a great time playing our first gig in Charlottesville at Fellini's #9. Hope to make it back again soon!

We had such a great time playing at Poe's Pub with our good friend Allen Thompson!!! It was a packed house with an enthusiastic crowd! What a great show! The Atkinsons wish Allen and Colleen the best for their upcoming wedding!

We were at our favorite place to be at the 26th Annual Carytown Watermelon Festival: Babes! It was probably the hottest day of the summer so far and we were all a big sweaty mess! But we had a great time playing and hanging with our buddies!!

Back at Diem...had a great time! Thanks to so many folks that came out to see us; especially all the musician friends that joined us! We even got our good friends Moossa up for a couple of songs! Sounded great!! And thanks again to Dennis Elliott for sitting in on fiddle with us...and this time bringing his banjo too!

We were really psyched to play The Camel again, this time with the very awesome Hoots & Hellmouth and Richmond's own Jonathan Vassar and the Speckled Bird. Two great bands that we really enjoyed meeting and sharing the stage with. Thanks Jessica for putting us on the show!

First time playing Shenanigans in a long while! We had a great time and were glad to see all the folks that came out to the show. We also really appreciated both Dennis Elliott (our new fiddle friend) and Dan Sessler (sitting in on lead guitar) for coming out and jamming with us on our second set!!

We rocked Cafe Diem! Thanks for everyone that came out to see us and also to help celebrate Jamie's birthday (second year in a row at Diem)!! We had such a great time!

A very sad day for ATK!!! We were asked to open for Jerry Douglas at Friday Cheers and we were so excited about the show! But unfortunately, it was rained out. The only Friday Cheers that was cancelled this season.

The Ashland Coffee & Tea show was awesome! We were so excited to play there and we had a great crowd! It was wonderful to meet Truman, Kay and George! We love AC&T and hope to come back soon! Thanks to everyone that came out and to Scott for coming and taking pictures!

Cafe Diem was awesome as always! Lots of folks out to see us even though it was Strawberry Hill Race day and Easter weekend! Thanks! Oh and thanks to Paul Magill for videotaping a couple of our new songs (he has them posted on Facebook).

Another awesome Irish Festival in Church Hill! We've played this annual festival several years now and it's one of our very favorite! Thanks to Stokes for putting ATK on again, and in such a good slot, and to Page for running such a tight and fun Stage O'Page this year! We really enjoyed ourselves and it was perfect weather! It was great to see so many of our musician friends also! Oh and congratulations Mike and Jennifer on the wedding!

We played a little acoustic show at Crossroads Art Center to celebrate our friend Gary Atkinson's birthday! Great seeing everyone and happy bday Gary!

We played our first time at The Camel and had such an awesome time! Thanks to The Sharp Comfort and Pendleton for asking us!

The Atkinsons had a great time playing at Grandpa Eddie's BBQ and were so happy to see so many folks come out! They were filming a commercial that night also so we'll keep you posted on when and where that will air. Who knows, if you came out, you might have gotten you mug on tv!! Thanks to Carey and Jack for having us back at GrEd's!

Valentine's Day at Cafe Diem was awesome! Thanks go out to all the folks and friends that came out to see us play with our good buddies Workhorse Blue! We had a blast! And a big thanks to Dan Sessler of The Dirty Truth for sitting in with us and ripping on the leads! You rocked man!

We had a fun show with good pals Blue Line Highway at Cary St. Cafe! Thanks John (BLH) and Dan (The Dirty Truth) for sitting in at the end and jamming with us on a couple tunes!

It was a BIG BIG show at Toad's Place opening for Cross Canadian Ragweed! The place was packed (over 650 folks) and CCR was awesome. We were so excited to open for those guys! Be sure to check out the pictures we've uploaded and videos soon to be posted from this show. Our set list included: Headed Down the Road, Alone With You, Forever Wanting You, Out of Time, Caroline, I Love Everything, Richmond, You Could Go, Water Town and Fisherman's Blues. Thanks Forest for videotaping and Patty for taking pictures!

It was a packed house at Cafe Diem for our first show of 2009! The show also was the beginning of our THIRD year playing every second Saturday each month at Cafe Diem! Thanks to everyone who came out and joined us for the party!

We played our first New Year's Eve gig at Comfort. on Broad St. and had a blast! Thanks to Jason and everyone at Comfort for having us. This is an awesome place to eat so if you haven't before, you should definitely go. Happy New Year everyone!

We were back at Cafe Diem; this time celebrating Ricky's birthday! We had a great time, as always!

We played The Triple for the first time and had a good time thanks to the small crowd that braved the cold night to come out!

We were back at Cafe Diem; our favorite hangout in Richmond! Thanks again to Steve for sitting in!

We played an early show at Highwater Restaurant at Toad's Place before the Reverend Horton Heat, Reckless Kelly and Nashville Pussy show. We want to thank everyone that came out and to Steve Barber for sitting in on bass! What a great night!

We had a blast playing the 9th Annual Brunswick Stew Festival! Thanks 17th Street Farmers Market and Echelon Entertainment for having us! Supposedly about 5,500 people came out to enjoy the stews and brews! And the weather was awesome!

We really enjoyed playing with our pals The Dirty Truth and Workhorse Blue at Poe's Pub! The place was packed and a good time was had by all! And it was great being back at Poe's!

We played a double header! We performed at the annual Beaverdam Heritage Day festival, and then at Cafe Diem that night.

Holy Hell that was fun!!! We had such a great time playing at The National we barely can contain ourselves! Thanks to all our friends that bought tickets in advance from us and everyone that came out to support us and cheer us on. We were thrilled with all the woohoos from the audience! It was great fun meeting the folks in the other bands, Grinding Stone, Black Rose, South29 and The Silverbacks. Thanks to Forest for videotaping and Christen for taking pictures; check our site on myspace and youtube for videos and pictures! Playing The National and Toad's Place have truly been the highlights of the year and we've been grateful to get the chance to play at these great new venues in Richmond!

What a beautiful day for Massey Alliance's Swinetangle BBQ event to benefit Massey Cancer Center! We were honored to have been asked back this year. We had a really awesome time, the food was outstanding (great job Smokey Pig!) and it was just a great family fun event on beautiful Rock Bottom Island. And all for a great cause!

It was our first time playing the annual Glen Allen Day celebration and we had a great time getting to play with our pals The Taters again! Thanks to the Glen Allen Ruritan Club and Henrico Parks & Rec for asking us to play!

We played two shows on 9/13! First was the second annual Bark in the Park at Deep Run Park to benefit Henrico Humane Society. What a great day; although steamy hot! We were honored to have been asked back this year and what a great event for the whole family and the doggies! Thanks also to Henrico Parks & Rec for having us and setting us up with that great big tent and stage! Later that night, we were back at Cafe Diem for our "every second Saturday each month" party! It was awesome seeing so many new faces in the crowd and thanks so much for all those folks who came up to us with such nice complements!

We had a great time playing the Wednesdays on the Water acoustic concert series at Highwater Restaurant at Toad's Place! Thanks Josh and the folks that came out to see us!

We headed back to that great big Heritage Amphitheater at Pocahontas State Park on 8/23 this time to play on Page Wilson's Out o' The Blue Stage Revue! We were honored to have been asked to share the stage with Page Wilson with Reckless Abandon and the Sara Arthur Band. Both bands were awesome. Thanks Page for having us!!

We continued our big weekend by playing the annual Carytown Watermelon Festival on Sunday at Babe's! Always a great time; thanks Paul for putting us on the best stage at the festival once again!

We had a great time at Pocahontas State Park playing their Pocahontas Premieres concert series! We played with our good friends Blue Line Highway who kicked off the "Rockin' Country Night". We played to about 200 folks - thanks to everyone who came out! And thanks to Sandy and all the park folks for treating us so well. Then we left and went immediately to our Cafe Diem show; which was packed! Thanks to Lust Not Love for opening up for us! Whew it was a big day!

We played Cabo's again and had a really fun time. We really appreciate everyone who came out and all the complements we got. And thanks to Cabo's for having us!

We played the Rhythm, Bets N' Brews festival at Colonial Downs with Last Train Home and had a great time. Unfortunately after a few songs, Last Train Home got rained out, but it was great meeting those guys. We'd like to thank Colonial Downs and Echelon Entertainment for having us!

We had a great time at Cafe Diem and thanks to everyone who came out to see us and to help celebrate Jamie's birthday!

We played Cabo's for the first time and had an excellent time! We had a wonderful, enthusiastic crowd that seemed to really enjoy themselves! We loved to see all the dancers too! We'll be looking forward to coming back to Cabo's for sure! Thanks Wayne and Susan for having us!

We celebrated Memorial Day weekend at Cafe Diem and it was great seeing so many folks out! Thanks also to Travis for sitting in with us on the lap steel - you were great Travis!

Dickie played solo at Grandpa Eddie's in the west end and Jamie joined him on stage for a couple of sets. We really had a great time and the food was awesome! Thanks to our good friends that came out to see us and to Gary Atkinson and Sister Sweet for playing a couple of songs between sets!

What fun we had at Cafe Diem! We want to thank Aaron Lewis again for sitting in with us on the fiddle...he's awesome!! We have really appreciated him playing with ATK when our fiddle player Mike has been out! Thanks to everyone that came out!

We had a great time playing Grandpa Eddie's!! We want to thank Cary for having us and Jack for booking us and taking pictures too! We had a fun group of folks come out to see us and help us celebrate Dickie's birthday. Our good friend Aaron Lewis rocked out on the fiddle too!

Cafe Diem was a blast, as always. Thanks to everyone who came out to the show; esp. Jim and Betsy celebrating Jim's bday!

Ain't nothing better than the St. Patrick's Irish Festival on Church Hill! We had an awesome time despite the cold and drizzle of the day. We loved seeing our good friends in the Ex-Patriots and The Havers, and enjoyed all the bands playing that day. Kris did triple duty by playing with ATK, Janet Martin Band and Billy Ray Hatley and the Showdogs! You rocked Kris!

Cafe Diem was rocking! What a huge and enthusiastic crowd we had! Thanks to all that came out and partied, danced and sang with us, and especially to Aaron Lewis for sitting in on the fiddle! Aaron is the Bluegrass Fiddle champion of the Fiddler's Convention in Galax, VA, and also a member of Special Ed and the Short Bus!!

The Atkinsons were thrilled to be asked to open at Toad's Place for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Benevento/Russo Duo!! It was our first time there and it was awesome. Thanks to everyone who saw us for the first time and took the time to come up and talk to us and give us compliments! Thanks Erin for asking us!!

We were excited to be back at Cary St. Cafe celebrating Valentine's Day with a few great friends, the Ex-Patriots and Alan and Matt of Mozely Rose! The place was packed to occupancy level!

ATK started off a busy Feb with a very cool church auction at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church. The theme was Arabian Nights and they had a very successful turnout for their biggest fundraising event of the year. The crowd was amazingly enthusiastic and they danced the evening away! Lots of fun for sure. Great seeing Amy Henderson there, and thanks to Philip for asking us!

We were back at Poe's Pub after a long absence and had a great time! Thanks Mike for having us and to Glitter Boot for opening the show! There was a great turnout of folks...thanks to all who came out.

We're happy to announce that The Atkinsons will continue our every second Saturdays each month at Cafe Diem into 2008! We had an awesome show with a great crowd to kick off the new year at Cafe Diem. Thanks to everyone who came out; especially to Wes and Helena Edwards for surprising us and opening the show!

A big thanks to Gray of Glitter Boot for having us at Grandpa Eddie's for the Holiday Acoustic Extravaganza! We had a great time playing there and hanging with the other bands. Thanks also to all our good friends for coming out and especially Dave Hess and Harry Gore for sitting in with us!

ATK rocked Alley Katz Sat night with the New Heathens and Sin City Reviva l and had a blast! Thanks Nate for asking us to open the show!

We celebrated a full year of "second Saturdays" at Cafe Diem with a special holiday acoustic show. Jared Jones of Fabled Automatic opened for us...thanks Jared, you were awesome! Thanks to all that came out to see us, it was great fun. o

We played a really fun show at Cafe Diem with our good friend Travis on lap steel sitting in for Mike Ferry. Thanks to all our friends who came out to the show and hang with us!

We played our first show at the new Capital Ale House Music Hall downtown on Main St. with Dean Fields Band. It was a great show; and what an awesome venue!

We were honored to be a part of the Celebration of Hope Benefit Concert for B.R.A.I.N. at the Innsbrook Pavilion. We shared the stage with three awesome Richmond bands: Blue Line Highway, Susan Greenbaum and Janet Martin Band. Thanks to Marguerite and Kevin for inviting us and for Susan for MCing the event and saying such nice things about ATK!

The Atkinsons were honored to be asked to play the 2nd Annual Swinetangle benefit for the Massey Cancer Center. It was a beautiful day and an awesome location, and the BBQ was the best we'd ever had! Thanks Massey Alliance for having us!

Big day for ATK! We played our second year at the Beaverdam Heritage Days; what a beautiful day! Then we were back down in the Fan at Cafe Diem that night. We had a special acoustic guest opening from Texas - thanks Gretchen!

We want to thank Brad Wells for letting The Atkinsons be a part of the 70th anniversary celebration of St. Giles Presbyterian Church on Grove Ave.! We had a great time!

We enjoyed being a part of Henrico Humane Society's "Bark in the Park" at Deep Run Park. It was a beautiful day in the park and it was great seeing all the folks that came out with their dogs! Great to hear they had several adoptions as well!

We wanted to give special mention to our good friend and ATK fan, Gary Wade, who died suddenly of a heart attack. A wonderful memorial service was held for him at ArtSpace on Sept 23 and many folks who knew and loved him came out to remember what a great guy he was. He was full of life and it was a tragedy to lose him so young. He came out to many of our shows and private parties and it was heartwarming to hear "Caroline" being played as background music to a touching slideshow of pictures of Gary. He will be missed.

Richmond Roots Revival hosted "An Evening of Acoustic Roots" with The Atkinsons, Blue Line Highway and The Taters at Bogarts. It was an awesome night of talented folks and good friends joining each other on cool songs. Everyone had a blast! We received a great write-up on Richmond Music Journal thanks to Tim Stanton:

The Richmond Roots Revival was pretty danged good at Bogart's with a nice crowd. First up was The Atkinsons. This was maybe my third time seeing them and I like them better each time. Dickie Wood has a Tom Petty quality to his singing. Good harmony from Jamie Wood, too. The songs kind of remind me of "On the Beach"-era Neil Young. Does that make sense? Their fiddle player was a late scratch, so John Leedes filled in nicely on guitar.

Blue Line Highway, John's band, was next, and their three-part harmonies with Leedes, Julia Dooley and Melissa McKenna were sweet, but some of my favorite moments of the night were when Leedes dropped out and the two women harmonized. It's a great sound, and one you don't hear too often. Gave me goosebumps.

The greatness that is The Taters wrapped it up, and what can you say about their vocals? Phil and Don...John and Paul...Richie and Timothy B...er, that would be Poco...Brad and Craig! Good originals, good covers, good lefty guitar picking.

At the end of each set, players from other bands joined in for impromptu tunes, and that was a lot of fun. Highlights were a seat-of-the-pants "Wooden Ships" and the Wilco version of "California Stars," which nobody but Craig Evans of The Taters knew and he said he had just gotten the words off the Internet that day. But it was good!

So, it was a nice night of entertainment where the emphasis was not on instrumental prowess, although Leedes shined a few times, but on vocal harmonies very well executed. All three bands could have used some pedal steel, though!

Schnitzel played an awesome set opening up for us at Cafe Diem to celebrate the release of their new CD entitled "Cold Harbor"! Great crowd also...thanks to everyone that came out!

ATK was on the road for Labor Day playing the annual Labor Day Festival in Jeff's hometown of Buena Vista, VA. We had a great time until the "band" truck decided to crap out on us and strand us for a bit. Thanks to some good helpful folks from BV, we got ourselves home that night.

We were so excited to share the stage with Scott Miller and The Commonwealth at the Shockoe Craft Beer Festival this year! This great festival celebrated its third year with a great lineup of entertainment sponsored by Richmond Roots Revival. Other bands playing the festival included Jackass Flats, Billy Ray Hatley and the Showdogs, The Taters, ThermUs and Shockoe Bottom Boys.

We were back again at Babe's for the Carytown Watermelon Festival. We really appreciated seeing all our friends that came back in the courtyard to see us!

What a blast we had at Cafe Diem last night! Thanks to everyone that came, danced and partied with us!

It was great to be back at Shenanigans - it had been a long while and we appreciated the enthusiastic crowd and compliments from the staff! Thanks to Troy Coghill of Fredericksburg for opening and Mike Kohler of Richmond playing between sets.

We had a great time playing at the Rockahock amphitheater in Lanexa celebrating our friend Matt's birthday! Thanks Matt and Rodney for having us. And it was great having Kris Krull back with us again on drums!

We were back at Cafe Diem for our "every second Sat" gig...we love that place! Again, big thanks to Johnny Hunter for sitting in with us. Great seeing new faces in the crowd and thanks to everyone who bought our CD!

Great to be back at our "every second Sat." home at Cafe Diem! Thanks to Mike Kohler for opening for us and to Mike Ferry for pushing thru a cold to play with us for the first set. Another thanks to Johnny Hunter for filling in on drums again while Kris Krull mends that broken collar bone!

Another awesome farm party once again in Beaverdam! Thanks Jeff and Mary Beth for your hospitality and good times!

What a big weekend for ATK! First, we played the Richmond Roots Revival show Friday night at Cary St. Cafe with Farm Vegas to a great, fun crowd. Then on Saturday, we enjoyed a beautiful day at Shands Park for the 2nd Annual Gathering Soul Festival in Dinwiddie. Thanks Shane and Victor for having us!

We were back at Cafe Diem on Saturday 5/12...we love playing that place! Thanks to all that came out and joined us for the fun. We're there every second Saturday of each month!

ATK was asked again this year to play the Ukrop's Richmond Race Fest and despite the wet weather, we had a great time!

On 9/30/04, Matt's Village Pub had their last open mic night hosted by ATK's own Jeff Williams. Each Thursday, a crew of musicians and fans of music got together there, enjoying every genre of music, originals and covers. We all became friends. Matt's closed but the friendships remained. It was great celebrating those times and those friendships at The Canal Club last Sat with The Gaskets, Ex-Patriots, Schnitzel, Gary Atkinson, Zack Lowe, Jared Jones, Dane Magoon and the many others that came to enjoy the show.

We were back again last Sat. at one of our favorite places in Richmond - Cafe Diem! A great crowd came out to hang with us and we really enjoyed ourselves. We're at Cafe Diem the second Sat. of each month, so come on out!

It was great to be back at Cary St. Cafe! Our good friend Allen Thompson and his band opened up and sounded awesome! We're going to miss Allen when he moves to Nashville, but wish him the best of luck!

Hope ya'll got to see the encore airing of The Music Seen on PBS Channel 23 on 4/5 at 11pm with The Atkinsons playing live at the Canal Club last summer!

Hope you all celebrated St. Patrick's Day for a second weekend in a row! We were down at Poe's Pub on Saturday playing with those crazy Irish punk rockers the Ex-Patriots. Then on Sunday, we played in front of our largest crowd yet at one of the greatest festivals in Richmond, the St. Patrick's Church Irish Festival on Church Hill! It was a beautiful day and we had a blast! Thanks Stokes and Page and everyone else involved for having us again this year!

We performed "Out of Time" live on the Virginia This Morning show on WTVR-CBS hosted by Cheryl Miller and Bill Bevins! Dickie was also interviewed.

We had an awesome CD Release show at Cafe Diem!!! Thanks to everyone who came out to support us...you all packed the house to capacity! We couldn't have hoped for a more successful show to celebrate the release of "American Gothic". Thanks also to everyone who bought a CD! And if you're a new fan and would like to get on our email list, just click the green button to the right!

It was great to be back at Cafe Diem! We love that place! Thanks for everyone that came and hung out with us. By the way, the extremely cool metal sculpture art that hangs on the walls at Cafe Diem was done by our own Kris Krull!

What an awesome show at Poe's Pub! Thanks so much for everyone that came out and packed the place! We also want to thank our good friend Schnitzel for opening the show and the Ex-Patriots for doing a song! Great fun.

Another awesome show at Cafe Diem on Sat! Thanks so much for all the folks, old friends and new, that came, stayed, danced and enjoyed the evening with us! Look for us to play at Cafe Diem every second Sat. of the month for a while!

The Atkinsons enjoyed meeting all the guys in Sons of Bill on Friday night. They sounded great at Alley Katz! Try to catch them in their hometown of Charlottesville or any time they come to Richmond! Wes Charlton also did a great job opening the show. Thanks to Alley Katz for having us and to everyone who came out to celebrate the holidays with us!

Our good friend and bandmate Jeff Williams got married to the lovely Mary Beth Taylor on 12/2. The band played at The Edge at Wintergreen for their pre-wedding festivities! We want to wish the happy couple the very best and thanks for having us.

Thanks to our good friends Moossa for asking us to play with them at Bogart's on Nov. 24th and Happy Birthday John!

We were so excited to watch the debut of The Music Seen on WCVE Richmond PBS on November 22nd! Ten great bands performed last summer at The Canal Club and were taped live. The Atkinsons, Buttercup and Palominos were combined for a perfect roots rock/americana/country show! ATK was also interviewed for the show at Poe's Pub (thanks Mike!) and thanks to everyone involved with the Music Seen for having us on the show!

The Atkinsons want to thank The Canal Club for letting us open for Moonshine Still out of Atlanta, GA on Friday Nov. 17th! We had a great time!

Thanks WRIR 97.3 for having The Atkinsons on the Locals Only Show! We were there promoting the big Richmond Roots Revival Two Year Anniversary Show that was held at Alley Katz on 10/21. We enjoyed playing with our good friends in Pennyshaker, 59H2O and OminOtago! Great night of original music! www.richmondrootsrevival.com

Beautiful weekend for playing the Beaverdam Heritage Days festival on 10/14 and for the National Folk Festival in Richmond! Great seeing our friends The Taters.

We played twice in one day on Sept. 16th...had a great time at Field Day of the Past in Goochland County; if you've never been, you gotta go next year! We also had a total blast playing our first ever gig at Cafe Diem that night. Thanks to everyone that came out to see us and to all the great folks at Cafe Diem for taking care of us. Also big thanks to Allen Thompson starting us off great!

We played the Shockoe Craft Beer Festival on Friday 8/25 at the Canal Turning Basin, along with The NewOldz, Copper Sails and Sin City Revival. The two-day festival was a big success with a lot of great local bands and awesome craft beer! A big thanks to Echelon Entertainment for having us! ATK was also interviewed by The Richmond Buzz, so keep checking the website in the near future for that!

ATK played at the Richmond Vegetarian Festival in Bryan Park. We shared the Richmond Roots Revival stage with some great local bands including Copper Sails, Jackie Frost Ensemble, Jubeus and Gene Pendleton Trio.

The Atkinsons were a featured band on the Great American Music Hour on 7/24! Thanks Jerry Jodice at WRIR 97.3FM for playing "Caroline"!!

The Atkinsons were honored to play a private reception at Gallery5 on 7/22 to celebrate the marriage of the famous Gary Atkinson and Karen Fitzhugh. We wish them much happiness! Thanks for letting us be a part of your big day!

The River City Beer & Seafood Festival was great! What an awesome day to be on Brown's Island. Thanks to City Celebrations for having us.

We had a HUGE weekend...The Atkinsons played three times in two days. We were honored to perform at the Grace Oughton Concert Benefit at Innsbrook on Sat. with Copper Sails and Modern Groove Syndicate. That night we played at The Canal Club for the live taping of The Music Seen on PBS. The show will air on PBS sometime this fall. Then on Sunday, ATK opened for the Braves at the Diamond! Excellent time was had by all. Thanks to our buds that came out to support us and the new friends we made along the way!

Thanks to all the folks who joined us at The Canal Club playing with our good buddies and an awesome band, Sin City Revival!

We had an awesome time playing at the Ukrop's Richmond Race Fest on Cary Street on 5/4! We even got on the Channel 8 News Thursday night and Friday morning!! A big thanks to Mike for making us sound good. Then on 5/5, we came back to Cary St. Cafe for a great night with the Palominos and Garland Carr for a Richmond Roots Revival show.

The Earth Day Festival was a wash out but thanks to those few die-hards that stood in the rain to watch us!

It was our first time playing with Plum Street Ramblers at CSC on 4/1 and we had a great time. Thanks guys!

St. Patrick's Church Irish Festival on Church Hill was once again awesome this year. Hope you made it out some time that weekend for the festivities. We want to thank Stokes for having us again and Page for keeping things running smooth backstage.

We celebrated St. Pat's Day playing with Moossa for their CD release show at Bogart's. We had an awesome time! Great to see our buds come out and we enjoyed meeting some new ones!

We want to give a big thanks to Alley Katz and our good friends Wrinkle Neck Mules for having us open for their CD release party on 3/10. It was huge!

Whew! Three Fridays in a row and every show was a blast. The Canal Club show on Feb 10th was just awesome. We always love playing with our good friends, and one the best bands in town, Sin City Revival! Thanks to Keith for taping and to Cindy for taking some great pics of the band. And of course to all our buds that came out to the show to support us!

Cary St. Cafe was packed for the Richmond Roots Revival show! Thanks to so many people that came out to see the show. We loved seeing all those familiar faces and also all the new ones in the crowd. It great playing with our buds from the Matt's Pub days, Schnitzel and Ex-Patriots.

Happy New Year! Thanks to everyone that came out to see our first show of 2006 at one of our favorite places, Poe's Pub! We loved all the dancers in the crowd and were happy to see all those new faces, esp. from Collegiate! Thanks to our good friends Fabled Automatic for opening - you guys were awesome!

The Atkinsons were honored to be asked to play at Collegiate Middle School in their beautiful auditorium. We enjoyed the enthusiasm from all the kids and especially the standing ovation at the end! Thanks to our good buddy Mike Ferry for setting that up and to Kris Krull for joining us on drums!

ATK played Breakers in the west end for the first time as a full band opening for our good friends 59H2O. Thanks to all that came to enjoy the show!

We ended up closing the show instead of opening for Dean Fields and we certainly had a great time coming back to one of our favorite places in Richmond to play - Poe's Pub! Dean Fields and Emily Easterly were dynomite!

Thanks to Jim from Bogart's for inviting ATK to play at their Katrina Benefit at the Elk's Lodge. It turned out to be a beautiful day to play outside, enjoying some great food and drink and hanging out with our buddies The Taters!

The Atkinsons were proud to be a part of the One Year Anniversary celebration of Richmond Roots Revival at Alley Katz on October 8th! The show was awesome and we want to thank all the folks who came out that night! We loved sharing the stage with Sin City Revival, Heath Haynes and Dean Fields; it was a great night of original music. We want to thank Alley Katz for having us and our buddy Keith Sproat for coming down and taping the show! RRR has a compilation CD available now highlighting the bands that have played RRR shows the past year. Make sure you grab a CD...it's only $5 at the shows!

Well we celebrated our buddy Jeff's birthday on the 10th at the farm in a mighty fine way! On Sept. 17th we opened for Pennyshaker at Poe's and the next day, we played at the Shockoe Craft Beer Festival at the Canal Turning Basin downtown with The Yokels, Moossa and Modern Groove Syndicate. Awesome September days to play outside and we can't say enough great things about our new friends in the other bands we've been playing with.

Busy month for ATK: We had a great time opening for our good friends, 59H2O at Out of Bounds on 8/20 and Moossa at Bogart's on 8/27!

ATK played the Real Estate Show on RICH-TV on Channel 79! Hopefully we'll be able to get a video or two from the show uploaded to our site soon...check back fort it! Special thanks to Michael Moore for having us on...it was an awesome experience! Thanks for all your support of local music in Richmond. We wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.

The Atkinsons were honored to be a part of The Richmond Vegetarian Festival again this year at Bryan Park. It was a great day of music, good food and fun, and we enjoyed sharing the stage with Modern Groove Syndicate, Moossa, Fabled Automatic and the Bob Hallahan Trio.

The Richmond Roots Revival show at Bogart's was awesome! What a great time, and we so enjoyed playing with The Taters and The Showdogs. Also great to see all those familiar faces in the crowd plus lots of new ones!

Thanks to our good buddies in the Wrinkle Neck Mules for once again letting us open up for them...this time at the Canal Club! We had a great time! Look for their new EP called "Liza" which will have 4 songs they recorded that night.

We joined Moossa on the main stage on Brown's Island for the Wachovia Securities CANAL WALK 2005 on June 4th! Thanks to our friends, old and new, who came out to see us, and we appreciated all the folks that liked us well enough to grab all those free CDs and buy t-shirts!

ATK thoroughly enjoyed our first appearance at Cary Street Cafe on May 5th! We appreciated The Unknown Favorites opening for us and our buddy Zack who helped us at the sound board. We had one of our favorite local singers join us on stage...thanks for jamming with us Heath!

Thanks to Vicki Neilson of The Giving Heart for having ATK back for the 2nd Annual CAM Fest on April 16 at the Farmer's Market. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the Pre-CAM Fest party at Arthur's on Friday, and despite the chilly weather on Saturday, we had a blast playing with so many of our favorite local bands. We even got on on the Channel 8 News that night!

The Atkinsons took second place at the Randolph-Macon College Music Honor Society Battle of the Bands! Congrats to our buddies in Pennyshaker who won and got to open for Carbon Leaf that night!

Thanks to our good friends who came out to see us play Alley Katz last Sat. night when we opened up for our buddies the Wrinkle Neck Mules! And Happy Bday to Chris P.! We finished off the weekend by playing Sunday on Church Hill for the annual St. Patrick's Irish Festival. What a beautiful day and such a well-run and organized festival. Always a pleasure!

We had a great time playing at Mojo's for RRR's Special Sunday Showcase on 2/20! We got to play with so many of our favorite bands in Richmond: Heath Haynes & the Crying Shames, Sin City Revival and Fabled Automatic. We also want to thank Monty Allen for recording the show!

The RRR show at Poe's Pub with the Wrinkle Neck Mules was unbelievable! We've never seen that many people packed into Poe's before! Thanks for everyone that came out to see us. Thanks Keith for taping the show for us!!

If you missed the RRR show at Poe's with Heath Haynes and the Crying Shames...shame on you! It was a great night! The Atkinsons had a fantastic time, and thanks to Shane and Dawn of The Boondocks for starting off the night. Check the RRR website for details: www.richmondrootsrevival.com.

We want to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays and the very best for 2005!! We would also like to urge everyone to support local music in Richmond. Check the calendars in the RTD Weekender or in Style Weekly and don't forget the Richmond Music Journal, who has supported local music since 1993. Catch local music on 102.1 the X - Studio B on Sunday nights and Activate! on WRIR 97.3 on Wednesday nights. And....go see a band!!

The Atkinsons were a featured band on 102.1 the X - Studio B!! Jay Smack played "Caroline" and announced our upcoming Richmond Roots Revival show at Poe's Pub on 12/9 with Heath Haynes and the Crying Shames.

A big crowd came out to Shenanigans on 11/12 despite the nasty weather. We really enjoyed playing with The Taters; they are such great guys! And we really appreciated seeing all those familiar faces in the crowd!

The Poe's Pub show with Sin City Revival was a blast! Thanks to all who came out to see us and to Chuck at Poe's for being such a gracious host. Thanks to all the dancers in the crowd, and hey - our fiddle player, Mike, sure appreciated the dollar tip from a new and impressed fan!

Jamie and Dickie Wood have organized a new concert series called the RICHMOND ROOTS REVIVAL. The series is geared to be a platform for local Richmond bands/artists who concentrate on original music ranging from Americana, Roots Rock, Rock, Blues, Bluegrass, Gospel, etc. Having been a part of the Richmond music scene for the past 15 years, we know it's hard for original artists to draw enough folks into local venues to make it profitable for the owners. Our goal is to have 3-4 bands scheduled for each monthly event. Combined with promotion through the RRR website, flyers, newspaper listings, emails, word-of- mouth, and each band's own fan base, we are hoping to make it profitable for both the venues and the bands and also give these great original bands valuable exposure in the area.

Original bands/artists interested in being a part of future Richmond Roots Revival concerts are encouraged to email us through the Richmond Roots Revival website with information about your band and a contact name.

RIP Matt's Pub: The Atkinsons were "born" in one of the greatest local hangouts in Richmond-- Matt's Village Pub. Jeff, Dickie and Jamie celebrated the last open mic night there on Thursday, Sept. 30th along with many of our buddies. We will miss Matt's!

The Atkinsons survived our big TWO festivals in ONE day on 8/29! We played the Vegetarian Festival in Bryan Park first and got our butts down to the Science Museum to play CAM Fest 2004. We heard some great compliments and we thank all who came out to see us. We also enjoyed the Pre-CAM party at Vicki Neilson's house the night before and hanging out with Pat Dinizio of The Smithereens, Jeff Black and Martine Locke.

The Atkinsons enjoyed being one of the many bands who played the Carytown Watermelon Festival on August 8! What a beautiful day and what a crowd that came out to enjoy Carytown's famous festival!

The Atkinsons were excited to play as a full band back at the place where it all started - Matt's Village Pub! Dickie and Jeff first met and started playing together at Matt's Open Mic Night!

It's official - The Atkinsons have a new fiddle player. Mike Ferry is a classically trained violinist and has been playing practically his entire life. Mike had been touring up and down the east coast with his former band The Echoes, until they decided to call it quits. During his three years on hiatus, Mike began teaching violin to make a few extra bucks. It was through one of his students, Chris Hale, that he was introduced to the band.

A modified version of ATK (Dickie, Jamie and Jeff) played a private wine party in the northside. It happened to be race weekend so guess who got caught in traffic for two hours going home (which usually would have only taken 10 minutes)!

After a brief but very promising run, Chris Hale has decided to leave The Atkinsons. Chris' other band Scattered, Smothered, and Covered, play a more traditional style of bluegrass and country - which is where his heart really is. So he's decided to give them his full attention. We wish him the best luck, and he will be sorely missed. Good luck Chris!

The Atkinsons played on a floating stage in the Canal Turning Basin downtown for Art Walk. We started off great but half-way thru the set, the sky opened and the rains fell. Unfortunately we weren't fast enough to save some amps and equipment before they were drenched.

The Atkinsons participated in a Battle of the Bands at Potters Pub. Although we received great compliments from the judged, Special Ed and the Shortbus won.

The Menokin Americana Music Festival was a huge success. We got to play with a number of excellent bands including The Jackass Flats, Bill Kelso and the Seldom Heard, and a Patsy Cline tribute singer, Shelia Marie, just to name a few. We were also interviewed and broadcasted on WRAR FM 105.5 and WNNT River Country FM 100.9. So it was a pretty cool day.

To help publicize the Menokin Americana Music Festival, we played live on WHAN 1430 AM in Hanover on Roger Reynolds' local music music hour "Drive Thru with Rog". We played a short, two song acoustic set with fiddle, mandolin, acoustic guitar and bass. Check out the WHAN website at www.whan1430.com.

The Atkinsons played their first Irish Festival on Church Hill! It was cold, but what a great time!

Jamie Wood has officially joined The Atkinsons. She sang harmonies and played percussion all night with us at Wildcats in Shockoe Bottom for the very first time. She is a welcome addition to the band musically, and certainly, she is much better to look at than any of the other players!

The Atkinsons played their first show at Boulevard Deli. Thanks Walt! What a blast!

The Atkinsons made their debut at Polkadot Arts Gallery! Thanks go out to Karen Fitzhugh (now Karen ATKINSON!) for asking the band play! the lineup included Dickie Wood, Jeff Williams, Ricky Breland, Chris Hale and Jay Turner.