Friday Night: Monotonix Dumps Trash on People, and a Guy in a Wheelchair Goes Crowdsurfing at Rickshaw

Joseph Schell

Monotonix frontman Ami Shalev at Rickshaw on Friday.

​Monotonix

Ty Segall, NODZZZ
January 28, 2011
@ Rickshaw Stop

Better than: The rinse cycle.

There was hardly a place in the Rickshaw Stop that the mic didn't travel during Friday's Monotonix show. It went everywhere. Literally. Including into pretty much every orifice of lead-singer Ami Shalev's body -- while he was carried over a sea of grinning, sweaty people.

The mic wasn't the only piece of equipment that migrated throughout the band's frenzied set. Take the drum kit, which started next to the stage on the dancefloor, but was quickly dismantled, lugged across the room, and reassembled. The kit eventually made it back to where it started, but not before getting a good smashing in nearly every corner of the room. It was a kind of theme throughout the evening: the trio of musicians clinging to their instruments like life preservers as they orbited around the venue, always encircled by a swarm of writhing fans.


So for most it came as no surprise when a gray-bearded, 46-year-old Shalev climbed on to the bar and began throwing everything in reach at the crowd: water, limes, straws, a garbage can. When Shalev started spraying some liquid out of the beverage dispenser he had grabbed from behind the bar, one guy shoved against the bar just opened his mouth and welcomed the free drink. And when Shalev began scaling the wall only to wind up clinging to the balcony railing above the dance floor, the crowd braced for the impact of Shalev's body, which they knew would come tumbling down on them the moment he let go of the rail.