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Am I Blue (Man)?
May 15, 2008

The Blue Man Group’s latest DVD, How To Be A Megastar Live!, distributed by Rhino and filmed at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas, finds the always-curious Blue Man (Blue Men, perhaps? There are three of them, after all….) fulfilling what appears to have been a long-awaited goal: Living the life of a rock star.

 

Not surprisingly, the leap to rock stardom—the behavior, traditions and rituals of which are entertainingly served up in Megastar Live!--was sparked by Blue Man’s own encounter with rock’n’roll lifestyles a few years ago.

 

“Moby had invited us to perform in the Area 2 tour in 2002—we were one of a group of bands traveling with

Moby, David Bowie and Busta Rhymes,” remembered Blue Man Matt Goldman in a recent interview. (He co-founded the Blue Man Group with partners Phil Stanton and Chris Wink back in 1998.) “We played and we learned a lot, but it wasn’t a full Blue Man experience—it was more like just a Blue Man concert.”

 

According to Goldman, the group then developed an idea based on the question, ‘What if the Blue Man found a manual online on how to be a rock star? On how he’s supposed to act, on how his audience is supposed to act?’  And that became the first step in developing Megastar Live!.

 

As Megastar is a “rock show” of sorts, there’s a wide mix of music that’s used (both live and pre-recorded) during the performance, ranging from a collection of original compositions to Blue Man-ified versions of such well-know numbers as Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” to Pink Floyd’s “One of the Days” to The Who’s “Baba O’Riley.”

 

“Pete Townshend gave us permission to use that version of “Baba O’Riley” and it got back to us that it was his favorite version he’s ever heard of the song,” remembered Goldman. “So that’s pretty cool.”

Posted by Laurence Lerman on May 15, 2008 | Comments (0)