Blue Man Group !!!

Last night we got a babysitter for the boys and trekked to Houston to take in Blue Man Group's How to Be a Megastar 2.0 show. Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

We got to the Toyota Center in on time, but got stuck in horrible traffic routing and had to wait a long time to park after we missed a turn. Grrr. Luckily, we got to our seats just as Tracy Bonham started her brief opening set. The auditorium was packed, but the crowd was good-natured. We looked around for our next-door neighbors, who were also at the show, but we didn't know where they were sitting. Tough to pick out two people from a group of thousands. Bonham's set lasted about 20 minutes, then there was a short intermission.

Then the Blue Man Group came on.

We had been to Blue Man's show, Tubes, in Boston several years ago and we have two Blue Man CD's, so we knew a bit about what to expect. For those who aren't familiar with the group, they are based around the character called the Blue Man, a silent, somewhat childlike fellow who likes to make music using a wide variety of custom-made instruments (PVC pipe figures heavily into many of them). There are three Blue Men in each show, and they are backed by an on-stage band. For this show, the band was based around creating BIG sound -- three drummers, four guitarists, two singers, plus the Blue Men. During the loud sections, of which there were many, their show can best be described as a wall of sound coming at you. Awesome.

Interactivity and comedy are also big parts of the show. The "story" of this show was that the Blue Men saw an infomercial for a course called "How to Be a Megastar", which they ordered (using a credit card from an audience member). The show was then based on the audio and video track of the course, teaching the Blue Men how to become Megastars and prompting the audience to participate in the standard Rock Concert Movements. These ranged from Rock Concert Movement #1 (the Basic Head Bob) to Rock Concert Movement # 78 (the Fake Ending). Between Blue Man songs, the giant screen and booming voice also taught the audience about interesting bits of rock concert trivia. My favorite was the story of Floppie the Banjo Clown, which you can check out here.

It's a tough concert to describe -- it's easier to go to this page and watch the two short videos. The second video is a great overview of what the show was like.

If you like music and humor, I can't recommend this concert enough. If the Blue Man Group comes to your area -- GO!