The bass player enters the Unterfahrt stage like a colorful hippie garbage man: A crocheted balaclava in yellow, red and green covers his face, leaving only his mouth and a slit for his neon yellow glasses free. The electric bass is also yellow, with an orange-yellow knitted sock dangling from its headstock. Stickers with the musician’s lettering, who also had his stage name tattooed on his hand, are distributed over the instrument and the musician’s outfit: Mononeon.
Invisible and yet colourful, faceless and unique, immediately recognizable but still hidden behind their own colourfulness, someone would like to appear. He sings about it too. In the middle of the concert – until then a wild jam between nerdy funk, hard rock and bass noise – Mononeon starts up “Invisible” with his fistulous soul voice. A song about racism, but also about Mononeon’s own anxiety disorder. A song that stands out in the often experimental, avant-garde sound like a soulful pop hit.
After that, the concert – 13 songs, no break, 90 intensive minutes and an encore – literally takes off. A wonderful guitar intro by Xavier Lynn is followed by polyphonic gospel like from the churches of Memphis – where the bassist learned his trade as a twelve-year-old accompanying gospel organists. Shortly thereafter, Mononeon and his band are suddenly punk: “Just getting high” overwhelms you with the energy of a herd of buffalo.
In the sound of the five-piece band, Mononeon’s bass pulsates like a glowing lava flow. But he can not only be highly virtuoso, but also gnarly and minimalistic. When he solos and prolongs a bass note into infinity with the wahwah pedal, he sounds like a bass Jimi Hendrix chasing gospel through heaven and hell. And when you close your eyes, you sometimes don’t even know who is soloing: a guitarist or the future of bass? See you soon, dear Mononeon.