If you’ve never seen the Tel Aviv quartet Monotonix, you might be better off. A quick search on Google Images gives you the idea: lighting their drums on fire, crawling over every imaginable venue surface, flailing upside down over audiences. Everyone I know who’s seen them reports back either amazed or terrified—or, as in the case of a San Francisco show where band members ran out into the streets half-naked and finished their set in a tree, thoroughly amused.
Last year, Monotonix played the UK All Tomorrow’s Parties festival and were summarily banned for mayhem of their usual sort. That didn’t stop Pavement, curators of this year’s festival, from requesting that they come back. Looks like the band tried and tried and tried to be calm and polite—for once! But, alas.
This in from the band:
Like we said before, for the ATP show we tried something different to make sure they don’t shut us down – because the country club that hosts ATP freaked out about last time we played there and the nature of our show. We asked them to make a little mobile stage for us, put it in the middle of the room, and we will sit on chairs on that stage and play 10 new songs that will make most of our next album without moving or doing anything except for playing music —with the audience around us.
The organizers tried to get the audience to sit down on the floor, but as soon as the crowd got up and started dancing, getting a very rough treatment from security, they literally pulled the plug on us, during the beginning of the 5th song, while we are just sitting on chairs playing our new songs.
Another amusing thing was that security refused to let half of the people into the venue until the middle of the first song, they wanted to “see what we’re gonna do” first before they let the people, who paid money to see the bands, come in. In the middle of the first song the other half of the people came in, and during the third song – everyone (except for us) got up and started dancing and having fun.
There were representatives of “Butlin’s Country Club” in suits (!) making sure “nothing happens,” and 25 security guards around us, it was a pretty surreal experience altogether.
We just wanna thank all the great people who came to that show, we had a blast playing those 4 new songs to you and it was very special, regardless of how short it was. It was nice to see everyone connecting to the music so much when there was really nothing but the songs. We’ll see you when we tour the U.K in September or other parts of the world this summer. Till then…
.Monotonix Can’t Catch a Break
