Nothing like seeing an Israeli noise-rock trio on Rosh Hashanah… Bizarrely, this was my first Monotonix live experience (previous attempts to catch them were thwarted by bad timing and scheduling conflicts), and my short response is this: Monotonix are three Dan Deacons with a massive Iggy Pop complex.

But to elaborate: You are much better off seeing Monotonix with no prior knowledge of their shtick. However, due to every blogger and music journalist and YouTube-posting video buff in the world frothing about how spectacularly rambunctious their live performances are, the potential shock and awe Monotonix can deliver is severely diminished.

Like Lightning Bolt, Monotonix set up on the floor, leaving the stage free for the battalions of photographers and videographers to document the Jew-sy, juicy shenanigans to ensue. (During the first song, I was christened with a forehead splat of water tossed by singer Ami Shalev.) The crowd—all ages tonight, with the alcohol-drinkers sequestered upstairs—immediately swarmed the threesome, who were wearing the sort of ludicrous short shorts people in my age demo used to sport in our mid-’70s gym classes.

Now get ready for a shocker; I’m going to talk about Monotonix’s music for a minute. They played perfectly serviceable Blue Cheer-y/Mudhoney-esque heavy metal/garage rock that roiled, fuzz-bombed, and squealed in familiar patterns, while Shalev shouted like Mark Arm with his nads in a vice. Last night it functioned how it probably was conceived to function: as a license for their ids to fly off the handle and to inspire the audience to follow suit (most of them did).

Music for Monotonix is merely the pretext to orchestrate chaos and generate sweat and unleash Dionysian impulses in people (which is a fancy way of saying, “spur folks to fuck shit up.”). Because they are charming, uninhibited, sexy (in a feral-foreigner kind of way), and Israeli, they can get away with a lot of shit that plain ol’ Amurikans couldn’t.

For example, at one point, they threw around a big plastic garbage container into the throng and it bounced around the venue like a hot potato. At another point, Shalev climbed a ledge and sang his heart out with his ass exposed. At yet another point while still on the ledge, a hot young woman joined him up there and Shalev simulated finger-banging her while she played with his long, matted locks. Later while actually on the stage, Shalev shoved the mic into his butt (talk about hitting the brown note…). Later, Monotonix had everyone sit and then commanded people to answer this question with a unison shout at the count of 4: “Should god save the queen or should he not save the queen?” But people kept prematurely answering the question and the whole premise was a huge momentum-killer with no substantial entertainment payoff.

Another Monotonix trick is to have punters hold up the drum stool and a drum and let the drummer play while aloft. Restlessly hyper souls, Monotonix kept moving around Neumos, even lugging the drum set upstairs at one juncture. No matter where they played, though, the music never really excited as much as the band-crowd interactions did. One always felt as if one could lose an eye or a nut. One often felt like the floor was going to buckle and break from all the jumping. One frequently felt like one’s nose could have an intimate meeting with Shalev’s furry ass. And all of that added a certain frisson, a certain sense of danger, that most rock shows lack.

Ultimately, Monotonix’s aim seems to be to turn everyone in the house into Iggy Pop circa Metallic KO. It’s an ambitious goal and it results in a fun, memorable experience, even if you’ve never heard of Dionysus.