Monotonix Provoke Cops At Toronto Show

Wrong Bar

Toronto, ON

on Oct 23 2008

Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

10/24/2008 1:18pm

It was 15 minutes of complete insanity, and by the time it ended, someone had jumped off a building and three cop cars were waiting outside Toronto's Wrong Bar.

Monotonix's set on Thursday night will go down as something Toronto has never seen and may never see again. When Monotonix played Toronto's North By Northeast Music Festival in June, they made headlines for ending their performance on top of a bar after frontman Ami Shalev climbed all over The Reverb, tried to strangle guitarist Yonatan Gat with a mic cord and stuck the mic in his ass. At another Toronto show in July, they spent most of the set drum surfing in the air and ended their set on College Street. But last night was by far the craziest set they've played in the city.

Every band should be taking notes from Monotonix. Sure, they may not be the best musicians (although Gat is actually a pretty decent guitarist and their musicianship has improved over the last few months of touring), but for sheer ridiculous spectacle, there's nobody like them. Shalev, Gat and drummer Haggai Fershtman set up their drums in front of Wrong Bar's stage with the amplifiers sitting just at the stage's edge. The packed crowd formed a tight circle around the band, and some people (including myself and Chart scribe Shehzaad Jiwani) jumped up on the stage, where it was at least somewhat safe.

I quickly found myself confused by the pack of Pabst-drinking frat boys who had somehow made their way to the front of the crowd. One of them kept grabbing Gat and Fershtman, patting them on the back and yelling, "You fucking rule this shit, man!" Gat and Fershtman both just kind of nodded their heads as if to say, "Oh boy."

Not only are Monotonix a spectacle in terms of their antics, but the clothing they sport is also similarly ridiculous. Gat was wearing an army jacket that looked like it had come straight out of 1812, Fershtman was wearing a hilarious '70s-style salmon coloured suit and sported a gigantic gold chain (the kind you use to tow cars; I'm not talking "ice" here) with a dollar sign around his neck and Shalev was wearing some sort of incredibly old women's tank top. He'd earlier been wearing a Fugazi Repeater-era sweatshirt which read, "You are not what you own" on the back.

When the set started, Shalev jumped up on stage and immediately belly-flopped into the crowd and began crowd surfing on a sea of hands. Within seconds, the entire floor turned into a huge seething, teeming mass. From where I was standing, I could only see Shalev occasionally. This was because he was truly all over the place. One second he'd be up in the air, the next he'd be on the ground, then he'd come out of nowhere and be right in front of me on the stage. At one point, I saw him jumping around on the crowd, and at the next, I was nearly knocked over when I found a crowd surfer's foot in my face, only to realize that it was Shalev's.

In the middle of the second song, someone (probably someone in the band, though I couldn't quite see) picked up a garbage bin and tossed it into the air. Then one of the frat brothers picked up the garbage can and stuffed it onto Fershtman's head. This was nothing new, as Shalev had done it during Monotonix's NXNE set in June.

The garbage can soon became the equivalent of a beach ball — it was thrown all over the bar for the next two songs. The drums were carried from the stage to the front door of the bar and back, and in the middle of the third song, Shalev stood on top of Fershtman's kick drum and was hoisted in the air. He finished the third song on top of the drum. But this was nothing compared to what would immediately follow.

Shalev grabbed the drum, Fershtman followed, as did Gat, and the band began making their way through the crowd. At first I thought they were just moving to the back of the bar. I was wrong. They went outside and the entire crowd followed.

The band relocated out front the jewelry store next to Wrong Bar. I couldn't see what the band were doing because of the crowd around them, but drums were banged so loud (the guitar was also still wailing with feedback at this point, even though it had been unplugged, but it would later be silenced) that residents soon began looking out their windows. Crowd members picked up garbage cans and recycling bins and began tearing the garbage, refuse, old cardboard boxes and paper out of them and threw them in the air while the drums continued to clatter. Within minutes, a cop car pulled up. It was soon followed by another.

Seconds later, Shalev started climbing up on the side of the jewelry store, and was soon on top of its sign. One of the frat fellows tried to climb up with him, but Shalev pushed him off. Shalev stood arms out, yelling at the crowd to shut up. When they finally quieted down, he said, "When I count to 10, I want you to shout, 'Yazoo!' But only do it when I give you the signal!" A bunch of 'Yazoo's' followed. I turned around and saw that traffic had stopped. Late-night walkers were also staring from across the street, pointing and laughing. At some point, Shalev also mooned the crowd.

At that point I realized I didn't have my jacket, which I'd checked. So I tried to see if I could go in to retrieve it, but the bouncer was not letting anyone back inside the bar, presumably because of the two cop cars parked outside in the street and the cops now standing behind the crowd with their arms crossed.

I returned back out front, where Shalev had started yelling something. He was crouching down and motioning the crowd towards him, telling them to put their hands in the air. Some people gladly moved towards him, but others got the hell out of the way because they clearly didn't want to catch him. Shalev then stood up, jumped off the jewelry store and crowd surfed on the crowd's hands until he was back on the ground.

At that point, everyone realized they needed to get back inside, and after a few minutes, security let us all back in. Shalev, Gat and Fershtman went back to the stage, and began packing up. Myself and a good chunk of the crowd hung around, hoping there would be more. But there wasn't, and when Shalev picked up Gat's guitar to put it away, he gave us all a look as if to say, "I'm sorry, but they won't let us play anymore."

It didn't matter that the set was 15 minutes and sort of a gimmick. You know what you're getting into when you go see Monotonix, and although this was much shorter than their previous sets, it was well worth it for sheer ridiculousness. I'm strongly against five star reviews for anything, but I just don't know how I could give this set anything else.

Every other band that thinks their live show is killer clearly doesn't know what they're up against. Until three cop cars are called during your set, and until you end it by scaling a building and jumping off it, your set will never, ever match the insanity and intensity of the three-headed ball of energy that is Monotonix.

To see Aviva Cohen's photos from this show, click here.