[Chinchy]

I just saw the Blue Man Group's Complex Tour last night. Wow, it was amazing. They had two groups open up for them, Tracy Bonham who was pretty good, and VenusHum who was AWESOME. I've never heard of the group before, but there was a female vocalist, one guy on electric guitar and also doing some stuff on a laptop, and another guy who was basically doing DJ stuff and mixing up electronica/techno/trance kinda stuff. All I can say is Wow. They really got into the music. Awesome stuff.

I haven't seen the Blue Man Group shows (I was soo close to seeing them in Las Vegas) so I don't know how it compares, but the whole thing was really nice because of the integration of the show and the rock music.. Highly recommended if it's coming to a city near you. Very funny. Even the LCD banner thingies on the side of the stage were quite funny during Intermission. Watch the banner on the left. Heh.

More information at http://www.blueman.com/complex/tourinformation.shtml

Anyone else seen it? What were your impressions?

 

[Zanth]

I had no idea Tracy Bonham was still kicking around. I saw her live in Ottawa in '96. It was a good show, she can really rock when she wants to.

 

[dd3mon]

I saw the Blue Man Group in Vegas (at the Luxor) earlier this summer. The show was... definitely different. There were funny parts, there were trippy parts, there were musically awesome parts and then there was most of the show: downright odd. Someone more "modern-art-ish" than myself may have called it a masterpiece, but for me, it had a little less content than it should have.

-dd3mon

 

[Chinchy]

Yep, that's why this concert was so great.. The whole fusion with music by turning the show into a rock concert worked quite well. It's not just continued melodic percussion, etc, but actual songs. They also had a funny shtick involved a tutorial for learning how to hold a rock concert by learning new "Rock Concert Movements".

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Yes, highly recommended to any lovers of music and spectacle. They really did everything right. They tried to play as much of it live as possible, but in the few occasions they had to sequence or pre-record something, they accompanied visuals that were synched to the pre-recorded music -- kinda looked like someone wearing fluorescent lights, but it was projected...on what, I don't know, because when the lights came back up, one couldn't see a screen. Great fun. Highly recommended. That male vocalist was really good, too. I liked the consistency of it all, too -- the blue men never speak, everything is said for them in one way or another (at one point, an audience member was brought up to introduce the band).

 

[Chinchy]

My only disappointment is that Venus Hum's performance was about 100x better live than on their CD.

As for the people wearing fluorescent lighting, I believe those really were people wearing fluorescent lighting. I was lucky enough to be seated 4th row from the stage, and I could actually see just about everything. Not to dispel the magic, but for the song where all the lights went out, in the background were guys dressed in black outlighted in fluorescent lighting so that it matched their outline guy on the displays. As for the blue men themselves, they carted out a big "display stand" with the outline of the blue men lit up so that it looked like they were standing still and not moving. The instruments were attached to the stands and if not touched were kinda motorized so that it either swung up and down or in circles or whatever. The blue men themselves stood behind the cutouts and manipulated the instruments. Pretty neat stuff because it looked exactly like robots.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chinchy Not to dispel the magic, but ...

Actually, I enjoy explanations, but I still don't believe you. How did they do that part where they climbed in and out of the sewers? Were they (gasp!) miming?

OTOH, I do kinda believed you, because I thought it looked really lifelike, their motions.

 

[Chinchy]

Quote:

Originally posted by Dusty Chalk Actually, I enjoy explanations, but I still don't believe you. How did they do that part where they climbed in and out of the sewers? Were they (gasp!) miming? OTOH, I do kinda believed you, because I thought it looked really lifelike, their motions.

on the stage in the back, they had two ladders on either side. They time it so that it matches the video. So there is the part of the video where the two guys are climbing down the sewer, and then they kinda fade out the video in the background and the real guys just climbed down the ladder. And since all you really see are the neon lights on their clothing, they have some degree of movement that won't be noticed. As for the blue men themselves, their cutouts had dual neon lighting that alternated, so it kinda looked like they were moving without moving. I suspect the guys in the background were lit similarly. I'll see if I can find some similar pictures for you.