Making the eighth stop in their Paint The Nation tour, Atmosphere arrived at Empire club in downtown Sacramento Friday night. Atmosphere consists of two people, Ant (Anthony Davis) who provides the beats and Slug (Sean Daley) who does the rhyming, but on tour they take a whole band with them, which undeniably adds a different component to their live show then most other rap acts. The band consists of Erick Anderson on the keyboard, Nate Collins on the guitar and Mankwe Ndosi providing vocals and spirit.

Joining them on tour are some other Indie rappers including Abstract Rude, Blueprint, and DJ Rare Groove. Performing mostly songs from their newest album, “When Life gives you Lemons, Paint that S*** Gold,” the crowd full of new fans and old ones alike rapped along bobbing their heads to every beat. There were times though when Slug would do some older songs like, “Don’t Ever F****** Question That,” from the Lucy Ford EP when the crowd would really get into it and it stopped feeling like a band on stage and people watching but more like one massive cohesive rhyming unit.

Atmosphere has been around in one form or another since the early nineties remaining true to their underground roots by never signing to a major label, which is certainly something admirable, and has created a rabid and devoted fan base. For all those die-hard fans that did come out early to the show Slug went out and talked to several of them as he later alluded to during the performance. He pointed out how many nearly attractive and beautiful people there were out there, and because of that fact they wouldn’t be able to relate to anything he was rapping about, which refers to Atmosphere’s third full length album, “God Loves Ugly.”

Towards the end of the hour and a half set Slug thanked the fans as he did several times throughout the show. After the final song he left the stage and that’s when the real noise began. People began screaming, clapping their hands and hitting whatever they could reach to bring Slug and the rest of the band back out. Moments later Slug and guitarist Nate Collins reappeared and launched back into another song.

However, the real treat of the night came next when Collins began speaking the intro to one of their most popular songs, “Trying to Find a Balance,” as soon as everyone realized what it was and the intro ended Slug started the familiar verse and with that every hand in the crowd shot up, every head started bobbing to the beat and everyone who knew the words (this author included) began rapping along as loud as they could.

Matt Rascher can be reached at [email protected]