The Blood Arm, Atomic Café, Munich, 05/13/09

Crazy always gets attention

The Blood Arm finally hit Munich again and the main centrepiece, to which the night was built around, was once again Nathaniel Fregoso, the dark haired, come-to-life Duracell commercial. Restless, with his dangerous smile and red raggery on his face he was shaking his hips in excitement all through the evening. But first things first:

Quietly and almost unnoticed the band from Los Angeles entered the stage, full glasses of red wine in their hands, all dressed up and smiling friendly. One last sip of wine and then the silence stopped. Before he started the singing, Nathaniel welcomed a guy called Thomas who stood somewhere front row and seemed to be one of those faithful souls who follow a band through the country and sometimes even introduce themselves to the band members. They dedicated the first song to him, but there was no more time for chit-chat. The band is all about the dancing, and that’s what they were here for. Nathaniel was soaked from sweat after the first song already – no wonder considering his speedy moves. He managed to step on every single inch of the stage and even take a few steps into the audience in this very first song.

The audience unfortunately did not seem to be able to keep up with Nathaniels pace, it obviously needed a kick in the butt from the band first. Only after the first ten minutes they started to participate, to at least nod heads to the rythm, which is weird considering the German’s normally well working sense of rythm and their perfect ability to clap hands at the right time. Anyway, „Angela“ broke the stiffness-spell. Nathaniel ordered all people to sit down on the floor and make some space for him too. He was sitting their in the middle of everyone as one colourful centrepiece for most of the song and had everyones undivided attention. This made people more comfortable and suddenly, with the shyness over board, all dance-hell breake loose.

There is another thing Mr. Fregoso is an expert in, other than singing: flirting with women AND men and entertaining them with his charme and some dirty jokes. He talked about his ladies, asked the people in the front row their names and sang them little offhanded songs that rhymed with their names. In between he threw in excuses for his constant blabbering, saying he was drinking all day long, but first of all that’s no surprise anyway and second of all nothing anyone would care about. With that apology said the band gave away an orange christmas tree and shortly afterwards a pineapple. I think we are not supposed to get the purpose in that gestures, it is probably only a way of repeatedly amaze and confuse people. While we were still wondering about the pineapple, it’s derivation and future, Nathaniel was already a step ahead and formed a human chain through the Atomic with direction to the bar. It were those simple impressions which captivated and sometimes even distracted from the music. By the way, that was one of the reasons why I can’t remember the set list properly. What I surely can say about the set list ist hat next to some well known „The Blood Arm“ hits they presented some new stuff too. As Fregoso told us the new album doesn’t have a name yet, but he pronounced his ambition to call it „Carlotta“, named after one of his favourite girls that night. We will see if he can still remember that tomorrow.

Speaking of sound and music there was actually nothing to complain about. The Atomic is a nice set for guitars, drums and keys and the band has got some routine. They were in a way synch one couldn’t really say if they made any mistakes or not. Despite Nathaniels hyperpresence we were able to give the rest of the band a good look as well, like the stunningly beautiful and coquettish smiling Dyan Valdes on the keyboard or drummer Zac Amos hitting his drums with confidence and never ending power. Only guitarist Zeb was holding back a little, sometimes hiding at the far left end of the stage and looking down on the floor.

However, there was one drawback. „Suspicious Character“ was the only (!) additional song after a short brake. There was so much left we expected and hoped to hear but suddenly the band had disappeared. Even the fact that Nathaniel walked over peoples hands and heads and hang down from a mirror ball all the way through the song did’nt make this less disappointing.

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