Monotonix: live @ Supersonic 2009

By the end of this set I found myself responding to the ringleader’s shouts of “Are You Having A Good Time?” with uncharacteristic passion. Group responses to questions, benign or sinister, have never really been my thing. But by two in the morning, while Saturday passed a sweaty torch to Sunday morning, I was too far lost in the good times to stand apart from the crowd; a crowd which Monotonix united under the banner of some divinely crude, Monkey worshipping religion. Who knew that after all this time that Israel would become the birthplace of a crowd based spectacle worth getting involved in.

They don’t just show you a good time, they force you to engage with it, or go somewhere else. Those who skirted the fringe of the concrete pit that was the arena in front of the outside stage might have missed out on some of the electricity that hummed around the band, who as per usual set up and performed amongst the crowd. They might have seen more than I did from their vantage point, while I was jostling with the swaying throng, but they probably felt a whole lot less. Not looked at the photos at the bottom of the page yet? Go do so now and then come back, because there’s not much point in me explaining it to you.

What needs explaining is just why it’s so much fun. Why? Because I know there are many of you out there like me, who try to have fun but think that what most people call fun is completely delusional/and/or self-destructive and as such you’re becoming more and more insular and cynical… No? oh…

Well anyway these guys have found a way of making people like me laugh, jump around and feel generally happy to have limbs and eyes and ears. I’ve seen them before, but this show became something else because of that ever pivotal factor: The Crowd…

This set was gifted with two very different occasions of people sticking their confused and drunken mugs right in the spotlight, a glare which they scarcely knew what to do with… their pupils dilated, their monkey brain tried communicating with rationality and all hell broke loose….

Well, almost broke loose. First up was a man who I’m certain is now infamous on the web as “Toni Iommi”. A tall man with some kind of handlebar tache variant, long dark brown hair, a baseball cap and a whole lotta denim love. When singer and all round hairy hero Ami Shalev told everyone to sit down, everyone sat down. Except a gaggle of people by the bar, who yielded to the first few rapid volleys of “EY! Sit tha fuck down!”. Oh, and Toni, who stood alone in another part of town. He almost sat down after the bar people did, but after the second “You! sit tha fuck down” came “EY! Toni Iommi! Sit tha fuck down!” and with that something called misplaced drunken pride reared it’s head and said no.

In this gentleman’s case it manifested itself as “Why should I?”, I’m a reasonable man he seemed to be saying, but I’m my own man and I don’t take orders, especially from a half naked foreign man who just mocked me by suggesting I had copied my entire image from my hero, a foreign man who is wearing multicoloured mini-shorts for that matter. But he wasn’t being rational was he? He’d reached the point of no return, his line had been drawn in the sand, but he was no Clint Eastwood.

After a few waggings of his finger and a score more repetitions of the command the singer began a sudden and swift run for Toni, who stood frozen to the spot. Jesus I thought, is this going to be the time that a Monotonix set goes sour? Would that be a first? Is Toni going to swing for him? Is Ami going to rip that 'tache off?

No! He hugged him, it was like someone hypnotizing a bunny, it gave him a way out. Not that … didn’t steal his baseball cap and rightly humble him by only returning it once Toni had sat tha fuck down, making a meal of it en route as if to make out that he was only having a laugh all along. Did he feel the love? Or did he just know that he would have been mauled by the crowd had he laid a finger on our bum waggling sweat-prophet? Either way it went right to the edge, the smell of fear rose from the crowd and mingled with the dim flicker of bloodlust, which exploded into the benevolent fireworks of more fun with the band trotting out a Sabbath cover, burning all the tension off instantly.

Candidate two had “lost her shoe” but found herself aghast at what she half wanted to call a groping, but couldn’t be sure quite what was happening. She took the microphone, told us how wasted she was then got into some Grade A passive aggressive interaction, skewed to maximum degree by some twisted hugging and Ami Shalev request that she get her boobs out.

Monotonix are experts at taking you to that place where things could go very bad, but don’t. Instead of rating them on their musical ability it seems proper to talk about their ability to hang on to their instruments (let alone play the parts) while the crowd split into two groups, the ones that want to steal the snare drum from the uber lovable Hagai and the protective ones that don’t want to beat to stop. Ami protects his microphone by triple binding the incredibly long lead around his wrists and palm, allowing him to bark his whatever that was about lyrics even when he’s dangerously close to breaking his neck on the way down from yet another crowd surf.

Guitarist Yonatan Gat is absolutely essential to this band, not only for the excitable metal-lite riffs which make the whole thing possible (and he usually nails them if you concentrate) but for keeping his god damn guitar in tune and not trying to vie for the crowds attention. Not that he doesn’t enjoy it when it comes his way (i.e. he’s shredding while standing on top of a wall or Ami happens to be out of sight), but Monotonix don’t need no wallflowers nor no Shrinking Violets now do they? He also manages to make the sound full enough to carry the antics (there’s a crunchy warm amp at the end of that very long cable and it sounded good last night) and he even gets funky from time to time with not a bass guitar in sight.

We talked about the theatricality of their approach in our interview, which took place a few hours before their show. It will be appearing on this site in a few days time, until then get out and see these guys if they are playing anywhere near you. Maybe their tour is over, I don’t know, but if you get the opportunity I’d suggest that you throw yourself in to the centre of the action for a while so that you can wander home soaked with thrown water, beer and sweat; smiling the whole way.

Live Pics: