All photos taken by Palmer Sather Back on Saturday the 19th, Monotonix made another Northwest pit stop on their never ending touring schedule. The crazy garage rockers from Tel Aviv, Israel returned to Seattle, and this time brought their insanity to Neumos.
My first Monotonix experience came in the form of their infamous 15 minute set from Bumbershoot 2008, in which the exhibition center security shut down the show before it really began. In that short set singer Ami Shalev had just enough time to dump a trash can onto drummer Haggai Fershtman’s head, and then proceed to crowd surf inside it. They had played no more than three whole songs before the uninformed and unprepared Bumbershoot security pulled the plug. It was complete mayhem, and having not heard much more than “you gotta see this band” type stuff before witnessing that performance I was in awe of the intensity and the fact that the band was allowed to set up their drum kit on the floor instead of the stage in the first place. The set ended unceremoniously with Ami pulling down his short short’s exposing his hairy ass and mooning the security right before we were forced out of the venue with minds blown. That first Monotonix experience left me salivating for more...
Since that time, I have watched more Monotonix YouTube videos than I can remember, and have seen many festival performance clips that mirrored almost exactly what I saw on that fateful Labor Day weekend. After familiarizing myself with the band since my initiation, the only thing I can say about seeing the band for a second time is; the first time I saw Monotonix I left the venue with not only an ear-to-ear permagrin but a renewed faith in rock n’ roll. The second time I saw Monotonix, as fun as the show was; it left me wishing it was the first time I witnessed such hijinks; as the cat was out of the bag . The second go around, I just couldn’t get past the fact that the entire thing seemed so contrived and staged. The unbridled chaos of my first experience was completely muted and I found myself sitting back to see if they were going to do anything different, rather than get sweaty with the newbie’s and diehards in the pit. The only part of the show that I could see being impulsive was when Ami again exposed his hairy sweaty Israeli ass and rubbed it on soloing guitarist Yonatan Gat’s unsuspecting face. That look was priceless. 
The band, who is touring in support of their brand new record “Where Were You When It Happened” on Drag City, is really nothing to write home about musically. This was magnified as I took in the action from a safe location, staying clear of Ami who is known to make examples out of unsuspecting concert goers. The show was full of inaudible yelling, no discernable songs breaks, and quite a bit of awkward silence, but of course the silence was always broken by a groovy fuzzed out guitar riff and thumping drum beat, which put a charge into the enthusiastic crowd every single time. What Monotonix does have going for them is crowd participation, as it is the core of their live show. The amazing amount of energy that Monotonix conjures up from the willing participants is pretty awesome. The band does clearly feed off the crowd too, as Ami crowd surfed through much of the set, while Yonatan climbed up on any flat surface he could find and drummer Haggai lugged his drum kit up all over Neumos including at one point up the back stairs to the balcony.Monotonix has a shtick like no other band I have ever seen. They stir up a crowd like no band I have ever seen. They are visceral, uninhibited and without a doubt nuts. They put on a rock show like no other band I have had the opportunity to see live. With this said I wonder how long Monotonix will be able to keep up the insanity as more and more people discover the band's live set isn’t quite as spontaneous as it may have seemed the first time.
The Unnatural Helpers and Black Eyes and Neckties played in support. This marked the final Seattle show for popular Bellingham horror punk band BENt.
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