Sunday afternoon at San Francisco’s Treasure Island Music Festival and She & Him has just finished a main stage set of their 60s-tinged glam pop. The crowd of music fans, undaunted by the city’s first day of proper rain in months, disperses to the various stalls and tents lining the outskirts of the festival’s narrow setting. This being SF, the queue for the coffee stall is longer than that for the bar.
Suddenly a squall of feedback rips through the air, startling java-lovers who are forced to repeat their macchiato order a little louder. The whine continues to reverberate from the smaller, second stage, then the squealing waves of sound finally comes crashing to shore in ferocious ebbs of trashing drums and grinding guitars. A throaty growl gabbles nonsense over the top as a small crowd assembles in front of the Tunnel Stage to nod their heads to the noisy garage rock.
But what the hell are they listening to? The Tunnel Stage itself is empty, save for a few roadies and backstage liggers staring out to the epicenter of the burgeoning mass. Suddenly you get a first glimpse of the source of the next half an hour’s rock’n’roll mayhem.
A trampy head emerges above the assembled others, framed by long, straggly gray hair, gradually matting its way to dreadlock status. A wild pepper-pot beard completes the street prophet guise, but as the figure continues to rise the picture becomes increasingly strange. With most people wrapped up against the day’s cool rain, this roaring madman’s bare chest is incoherent. But more so are his bright yellow shorts and royal blue knee socks, not to mention his obvious comfort at being tossed around on his back by the flailing hands of the growing audience.
The festival’s low-key security staff glances with little concern as the crowd surges and rolls, passing the singer overhead then following him away from the stage. Audience members likewise launch themselves as flotsam onto the wave of hands, but the festival’s enforcers don’t move save to confiscate a large bottle of contraband whisky from a guy unfortunate enough to unveil it right in front of them. Perhaps the security has seen Monotonix before. Perhaps they know what to expect.
For those of us unprepared for the anarchic punk rock of the Israeli threesome, it is a rare treat to stumble across a live act that relishes freedom, revels in spontaneity and rocks hard, even when the jagged riffs are ripped out by a guitarist lying back on a moving bed of people. There is no sign of the drummer amidst all this mayhem, but he’s there somewhere hidden in the pile, propelling the unruly music onwards.
Banned from most venues in their hometown of Tel Aviv, Monotonix shows aren’t about songs. In fact, it’s hard to tell at any point in the ragged, impulsive proceedings, where one song begins and another ends. But why would you care when the shaggy-haired singer, Ami Shalev, is now being raised on a stool by reaching hands and a single drum appears in front of him. Shalev screeches about coming in love and peace. He leads the crowd in an a capella rendition of The Beatles’ A Hard Day's Night. From his pedestal he pounds out fierce rhythms on his single skin, then tosses his sticks into the crowd and jumps in after them, eventually emerging by the mixing desk where he unloads a grimy trash bag over the quickly retreating audience.
Monotonix live is pure musical theater backed by a perfect, pulsating soundtrack that ensures the antics and artifice never becomes boring. It is also a participatory performance as the audience continually shifts and circles to accommodate the show’s ever-changing circumstances. A crowd surfing girl is tossed around so wildly she resembles a scuba diver having an epileptic fit. Shalev implores everyone to sit down and the damp grass underfoot doesn’t stop anyone from acceding to his request. One brief peace-and-love-in later and everyone is back on their feet, bouncing and howling, whopping and wailing.
The finale sees a ritual circle surround the finally apparent drum kit, while Shalev hoists his own drum in the air and hurls it in an act of mutually assured drumstruction. Annihilation has never sounded so good.
I saw that set too! I've never seen anything quite like it. Truly one of the highlights of the weekend.
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