Are we ever prepared for chaos? I mean real chaos, legs in the air, feet in your face, crowd-crawling people above your head, splash of beer over your camera and drumbeats loud enough to make your ears ring two days later. I knew it would be insane, but attending a Monotonix show is way more surreal than I could describe and you could imagine. Saying that the hairy Israeli trio doesn’t follow the rules is a euphemism, these guys are punkier than anyone, rawer than tartar steak, and wilder than three lions in heat.
Their delirium began when they cleaned up completely the stage before starting their set and installed their instruments on the floor, in the middle of the audience, making a little hole in the crowd packed at the Echoplex on Thursday night. I could not even seen what was going on, but when Ami Shalev showered the crowd with three water bottles, jumped from the stage, walked on the crowd like the Messiah on water (yeah, you need some faith to do that!) and surfed the wave carried by the arms of the people jubilating to witness such an entrance, I understood it was going to be a very hot evening.
He finally arrived at the location where Yonatan Gat on guitar and Haggai Fershtman on drums were already madly playing their raw garage punk rock, in the middle of the crowd, and then the madness continued for about an hour or so: it was raining sweat, the air conditioning could not compete with the human heat, and people were pushing, moshing, jumping as if they were going to pass out. But I was not sure exactly of what was going on, seeing very little of it, just looking at bodies passing above. The music had unleashed a bloody fury and the whole club had become a giant mosh pit.
Shalev is known for his eccentricities, like setting his drum on fire, or putting his mic in his ass, and last time Monotonix was supposed to perform in LA, the fire marshal wanted them to stay on the stage of the Hollywood palladium, but the band refused and decided to not perform.
It was another story at the Echoplex: it was already extreme but Shalev was not done with its antics as the trio seemed to move around the large club, dragging the crowd with them, and then, as expected for them, a drum was brought in the air, and Shalev was soon at the top of it, bumping his head in the ceiling of the Echoplex, and drumming like an all-eyes-out-devilish monkey flirting with dangerous stunts … there is a point when the whole thing becomes more acrobatic performance than rock, and people were here to experience this kind of stuff. I just wanted to give a glass of water to the guy and told him to calm down a bit!
But Shalev does not only surf the crowd as his music storms its furious sound, he embraces it, he sculpts it as it goes, and makes one with the hundred of people who triumphantly carry him like a Jewish prophet
During all this time, the music had never paused for a second, and I was unable to know if a song had stopped or another had started, but whatever, the whole thing was pure energy of distorted metal guitar riffs, powerful drumming and screamed-your-bloody-tonsils-out-vocals, although I don’t remember very well about the music, er,.. it was chaos, and I was too busy saving my ass.
Shalev surfed the crowd another time laying down on a red ‘magic carpet’, and finished up the show on stage where he hadn’t set foot before, delivering a sort of sermon after having silenced the crowd for the first time. He fully played his role of prophet, encouraging people to be good with their body, free their mind, and accept difference… difference like him.
And then, he dropped a bomb, announcing that their current tour would be the last Monotonix tour!! If it’s really true, I’m glad I go the chance to see them, but he is a stunt man so who knows? Shalev continued saying he was 46 and that he had toured non-stop… well at this rhythm, I could understand a break, but completely over? It would really be a shame…