There’s a meme floating through Instagram asking people about their concert history. Participants provide information on the “Best” or “Loudest” concerts attended. One question asks for “Most Surprising.” People answer this in different ways. I responded with a concert that friends wouldn’t have expected me to be at (Debbie Gibson / Bros. in 1989). Some friends used the prompt to note a dinosaur rock concert that was better than they had anticipated. Others called out a concert that was different than they expected or maybe one unlike anything they’d experienced before. All seem like valid ways to approach the query, but after Tuesday night, maybe I missed the point.

The night started with Moon 17. Zack Hames imagined the project two years ago. He’s part junk man, part gear hound, part producer, and part visual artist. And he’s always evolving the act. After several early solo shows he determined the project needed more than he could manage solo, and promptly recruited his wife, Samantha Conrad. She’s part collaborator, part enabler. The duo – aided with several hundred pounds of electronics, miles of cable, and an impressive light show – are the current incarnation of Moon 17. Connoisseurs of the genre might call the project EBM. Those less pedantic just moved to the pulsing synths and tossed themselves about to rhythms that range from pounding stomps to skittery mindbenders. Spoken samples pulled from unrecognizable sources played between songs, often making their way into the compositions as well. They were typically sci-fi. Cold, airless, and alien. It was a vibe. In a short 25-minute set the twosome delivered atmospheric head trips filled with mutating leads and enveloping washes, as well as four-on-the-floor stompers augmented by Hames’ heavily distorted guitar. The later songs were powerful, the former were captivating. The duo played most of it live with the aid of a bevy of electronics I could never hope to identify. Hames was always shifting from one station to another, twisting a knob or setting off another sequence. Conrad was generally head down, fussing with her own knobs and sliders. Her left arm was in a sling curtailing her usual dance moves, but somehow she still built electronic beds for the band’s songs and provided occasional vocals. When she sang, her voice was lost to the mix, but her terrifying shouts boomed. The sound engineer was powerless to manage the dynamics. Throughout the five or six-song set (many of them still unreleased) strobe lights flashed colors from the floor up onto the faces of the couple. The shadows were deep and extreme. Sometimes there were no flashes and only the lights from glowing equipment were visible in the otherwise dark club. It was as if our spaceship had lost power, and we were now adrift. Check out Moon 17 before the ship crashes into an uncharted planet or the aliens get us all.

When Phoenix’s MRCH took the stage frontwoman Mickey Louise warned the audience that the band would be the pop center of a much darker bill. “Pop” could mean nearly anything, but since I had already dug into the act’s scant catalog, I knew that the pop of MRCH was mostly dream pop with lots of electronic elements. In fact, it was this pop center that brought me out. Louise continued to address the audience, asking the crowd to come forward while simultaneously admitting that she’d be too terrified to do the same. It was sweet and the audience obliged. When not working the crowd, Louise provided vocals as well as splitting her time between guitar and keyboards. Her husband Jess Pangburn played both acoustic drums and an electronic pad that boomed aggressively through the room at the request of the band. He also managed the laptop that provided backing tracks. Billy Rose spent part of the set launching synthesized samples and the other half playing bass. The result was jarring – half of the set featured an electronic pop act with Louise triggering arpeggios on her keyboard while high-energy electronic filagree exploded around them, the other half featured a guitar-led rock group augmented by surprisingly funky basslines. It was easy for me to pick a favorite, especially since the mix on the pop songs wasn’t quite right. I retreated to the back of the room in hope of a more unified sound but never found it. It’s possible that the small and dark Minibar just isn’t the right room for MRCH’s big pop vision.

Although I was prepared for MRCH, I had only given headliner Street Fever a cursory needle drop. I noted it was sort of banging electronic industrial, determined that’d be fine, and locked in my plans for the night. I should have done more research, but even I would have, nothing could have prepared me for the onslaught that is Street Fever. Street Fever is a single person. Nameless and genderless. Or perhaps all names and all genders. They’re an artist from Boise but have a bio that details a rough life including a stint in a Thai prison. I have no idea how to separate fact from fiction, but Street Fever’s performance made it clear that they have seen some stuff.

First the lights were cut and then fog began filling the room. Next, a dozen parallel rays shot up from the floor creating bars of white light that jailed the performer. Street Fever stood behind the poles at a booth producing a dark industrial bile that spread throughout the room using rave and house delivery agents. I wondered if this would just be a DJ set. Between strobes and blinking eyes, the audience caught small glimpses of Street Fever. A mask or rather a hood covered their head. A chest plate covered their torso. It was black with bands or tubes. Futuristic. Apocalyptic. Borg. After the first song the creator came forward to the edge of the stage wielding a flashlight that sent a tight spotlight scanning across the room as if it were searching for a missing prisoner. A microphone made the trip forward as well, but I don’t know if any of the vocals were live. To be honest, I don’t know if any of the music was live either, but I can confirm that the associated performance was. Under synchronized lights that created atmosphere rather than providing clarification, Street Fever grabbed a canvas and began painting on it. Soon a tube was removed from the chest adornment and used to smear the black paint. A song later, satisfied that the art had served its purpose, it was then smashed on some sort of easel or coatrack or tripod adorned with yards of ghostly Visqueen. Street Fever then dragged it all off the stage and into the crowd that parted quickly and for its own safety. Street Fever was not gentle. A folding metal cot frame was also introduced into the mix. At some point it all collapsed onto its artist. The monster and its creator sprawled across the floor, in the middle of the room, in the dark, while the music blasted away. Some fans danced through the event, occasionally finding a drop to jump to, sometimes not. Some watched motionless while the chaos enveloped the room. Thirty minutes later Street Fever stood on stage, draped in the cot and whatever was snared by its springs. And then the music stopped. And that was Street Fever.

As the club lights came on and the merch tables began to do their business, I polled my friends in the crowd. None had known what to expect from Street Fever, but everyone was excited by the result. Moon 17’s Zack Hames was thrilled by the constant motion. I could see the wheels spinning in his head as he thought about how this might impact his own art. I was hopeful too. As I walked back to my car, I thought about the times that I’ve seen concerts and performance art collide, and what happens on the extremes of each. Maybe surprising concerts are the ones that make you think differently. If so, and with no offense to Ms. Gibson, I might need to change my answer.