06-16-2011, 10:17 AM
It's been a while since I posted a review. I've been seeing a lot of shows. Just been slacking in reporting about any of them. I had an opportunity to housesit someone's place in SF last weekend. I looked for "things to do" and saw that there weren't a whole lot of interesting shows going on. English Beat played Thurs. Peter Gabriel played the Greek on Fri. But nothing resonated. Then I remembered that the Blue Man Group show was in the area. I found tix on Craigslist for 1/2 price, so I went for it.
BMG is a little passe now. I think they hit their stride mid-90's. But I never saw them, just video clips of various performances. I really enjoyed their first album "Audio". For all their silly-ness performance art, it's actually a serious, well-produced instrumental album. Almost a surf album, really... I think the second big release for them was a DVD/album combo for "The Complex" where they riffed on arena-rock. They brought in a number of artists: Dave Matthews, the singer from Venus Hum. It was meh, not great (although on the DVD, the performance of Donna Summers' "I Feel Love" was pretty cool). This show is more of a travelling theater production than a music performance by a particular group. Everything was tightly choreographed. The Blue Men in the show are hired actors, not the original creators.
This show was sort of a BMG revue. It had bits (skits?) from the original show, bits from The Complex, and some new bits thrown in. I had nosebleed seats, but brought some binoculars which worked out fine. The show was fun, funny, musically tight. The some of the gags with "plants" in the audience were fairly obvious (probably because I've seen enough clips), but enjoyable nonetheless.
All in all, a fun night, and now I can say that I've seen a live BMG show.
--tg
BMG is a little passe now. I think they hit their stride mid-90's. But I never saw them, just video clips of various performances. I really enjoyed their first album "Audio". For all their silly-ness performance art, it's actually a serious, well-produced instrumental album. Almost a surf album, really... I think the second big release for them was a DVD/album combo for "The Complex" where they riffed on arena-rock. They brought in a number of artists: Dave Matthews, the singer from Venus Hum. It was meh, not great (although on the DVD, the performance of Donna Summers' "I Feel Love" was pretty cool). This show is more of a travelling theater production than a music performance by a particular group. Everything was tightly choreographed. The Blue Men in the show are hired actors, not the original creators.
This show was sort of a BMG revue. It had bits (skits?) from the original show, bits from The Complex, and some new bits thrown in. I had nosebleed seats, but brought some binoculars which worked out fine. The show was fun, funny, musically tight. The some of the gags with "plants" in the audience were fairly obvious (probably because I've seen enough clips), but enjoyable nonetheless.
All in all, a fun night, and now I can say that I've seen a live BMG show.
--tg