We Are Scientists, Foreign Born, The Grates, The Blood Arm (The Independent, 31 March 2006)

This bill looked promising at first, with a lot of up and coming bands performing in front of yet another sold out audience. But at the end, it wasn't that good.

The Blood Arm is an L.A. based band whose reputation for rowdy shows is well documented in the L.A. blog circuit and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos' declaration in SPIN Magazine that they are one of his most favourite, yet unknown, bands. I actually like The Blood Arm's album, Bomb Romantics, and was looking forward to their performance. Well, they sounded alright. The instrumentation was great and lead singer Nathaniel Fregoso's voice was bearable. Hell, even Nathaniel's interaction with the crowd was somewhat amusing. At one point, he told the audience to sit around him, camp fire style, as he was singing. Cute, yes. So, they were alright live. Maybe I need to be in Spaceland or some other venue in Silver Lake to get the complete Blood Arm experience.

I missed a majority of The Grates' set because I opted for some tea across the street. These Australians were good live. I forgot a majority of what they played, but they were good.

Foreign Born just bored the living hell out of me. Their sound was not dynamic, almost cookie cutter. I wasn't paying much attention since that moron from the Clap Your Hands Show was right there in front of me! Not only was he there, but he brought some of his stupid friends as well. I thought that his bafoonery at Clap Your Hands was a one-off thing, but noooooo. He was just as retarded, obnoxious, crunked and annoying as last time. He did get a hair cut though.

We Are Scientists came on close to Midnight. Again, they sounded good and were entertaining with the on-stage banter. Keith Murray, the lead singer and guitarist for the band, had huge problems with the mic stand from hell. Overall though, I wasn't too thrilled in seeing them. Sure, songs like "Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt," was great to hear live, it seemed like nobody did move for fear of getting hurt. Why the audience was just still was beyond me. I would have been more into the band if people actually moved and got hurt. Other songs like "Inaction" and "Callbacks" was also fun, but they sounded too much like Ima Robot.

I was glad my house was nearby so I can just walk home.


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