Monotonix last night at The Hideout

February 16, 1:09 PMChicago Live Music ExaminerAmanda Nyren

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The oddly alluring men of Monotonix. Emphasis on odd.

Monotonix played a sold-out concert last night at The Hideout (1354 West Wabansia), and my initial expectations for a raucous punk show with a little pyromania thrown in for good measure fell far short of reality. Things got ca-razy.

During the opening act, I sat near the bar with my friends and surveyed the crowd (I am thisclose to placing an “I Saw You” in The Reader for the Javier Bardem look alike in the motorcycle jacket). We managed to leave our seats long enough to catch a few songs from Turbo Fruits, who sounded a little less Kinks, a little more The Clash live. The Hideout, a rinky-dink bungalow in the midst of an industrial black hole, presents a tiny underground music den where poor sight lines and getting your toes stepped on comes with the territory. Nonetheless, I was pretty miffed when a man in a woman’s red velour jacket, exactly my height with long curly hair and a Captain Hook mustache stepped directly in front me, blocking my view of the Turbo Fruits. I tapped him on the shoulder to ask him to move, and then realized it was Ami Shalev, lead singer of Monotonix. I smiled nervously and told him I liked his jacket.

Later on, when Monotonix took the floor (they prefer to play on the ground among the crowd), I wedged myself near the front to see more of this strange little man and his band. Drummer Haggai Fershtman, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Borat, switched between expressions of fierce intensity and unbridled joy while performing. Guitarist Yonatan Gat, the mysterious one, showed little expression beneath his thundercloud of curly brown hair and banged out vicious riffs on a heavily duct-taped ax. All three men wore only tiny second-hand-looking shorts, apparently unashamed of their chicken legs and effusive body hair. The show commenced with Gat and Hershtman building an apocalyptic sound, while Shalev parted the crowd and crept between people like a demon. He then perfected a 30-second handstand before jumping to his feet, leaping on stage, and pulling his shorts down to hold the microphone up to his ass.

Things only got weirder from there. Equipped with extension cords and a few roadies/diehard fans in the audience to help them maneuver, Shalev and Gat careened around the room, standing on tables and countertops and leaping out to body surf above the crowd. Three songs in, they shoved everyone out of the way to move Fershtman’s kit further toward the middle of the room, never once missing a beat. A maniacal master of ceremonies, Shalev pointed at an unsuspecting audience member and then thrust the kick drum into his hands to hold above Fershtman’s head. Another three audience members were then directed to hold a stool aloft, which Shalev climbed atop to bang on the drum above Fershtman’s head.

Other highlights included Fershtman setting his kit up on a precariously tiny bar top, Gat attempting to bodysurf when no one was there to catch him and falling on his head instead, and Shalev ripping his shirt off, ringing it out, and stuffing it down his shorts saying, “this next song is a special one. For this one, I am going to show you this one.”

If you can’t quite picture it, then I’ve done my job. Throughout the entire concert, while banging my head and fighting to keep my spot near the frontlines, I could barely keep my eyes on Shalev as he darted about, performing his insane rock acrobatics. The performance unraveled much like a car accident, coming out of nowhere, blind sighting me, and ending before I really knew what had happened.

Oddly enough, when approached after the performance, the guys seemed pretty regular, almost goofy. Face to face with Shalev, I couldn’t help noticing a certain glimmer in his eye, hinting at some mischievous sprite or imp within. The guys named Nirvana and Butthole Surfers as some of their favorite bands and said they always love playing in Chicago. (Their last performance at The Mansion in Logan Square ended with Fershtman gathering his drums in his long arms and crying to everyone to follow him outside.)

At the end of the night, my friends and I gathered our wits and walked down Wabansia, headed toward the bus stop on North Avenue. An Astrovan piloted by a burly, bearded man with a giant silver star painted on his forehead whizzed by, its passengers shouting, “Monotonix!”

“Hey, want to give us a ride?” I called, expecting the van to keep driving. To my surprise and delight, the van stopped, rolled open its door, and the driver called to us to hop in: the perfect ending to a pretty ridiculous night.