Check out these photos from November 29, 2006 at Manchester’s Night and Day Cafe. It was my twenty-seventh birthday.
Read a review of the show: THE BLOOD ARM take to the stage with true finesse, a stadium-style drumbeat is accompanied by a voice over intro from a shirtless sweaty man – who it transpires is the drummer and not just The Blood Arm’s personal MC. What follows can only be described as truly wonderful.
Lead singer Nathaniel Fregoso owns every inch of the stage, the floor, even the bar at one point…you get the picture. He’s like Har Mar Superstar meets Mick Jagger, swaggering and thrusting around in an utterly likeable manner. At one point he dismounts the stage and insists that we all sit down for the next song, to make it “truly special”. It really is very special. I’ve never voluntarily sat down on the floor of Night and Day (involuntarily when drunk, yes but never of my own free will). Nathaniel stands amid the seated crowd like a messiah to serenade us all with the one slow track of the night, ‘Going to Arizona’, before returning to full party mode on stage to deliver ‘Suspicious Character’ an anthemic funk rock track that oozes the sexual prowess that Nathaniel clearly believes he has in abundance.
The Blood Arm sound like a kind of Scissor Sisters, Elton John (during the rock n roll piano bits) hybrid, but with classic indie guitar sounds and the ability to go a little bit Queen with the addition of some big hand claps. The final song of the night is an old favourite – it’s Nathaniel’s birthday so the room erupts into a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’, a cake is then delivered on stage and I half expect a stripper to jump out, but no it’s just a nice spot of sponge for Nathaniel.
Photo and article by Helen Jones.