Andrew Speaks/Types

Another thing that the Blue Man Group completely succeeded in doing was being hilarious. Everything they did not only bottled my mind but also made me laugh really hard. Even before they went on, they had a scrolling LED light talking to the audience. For the first few minutes of sitting down, the words read loops of things like

“Please turn off all cameras, cell phones, game boys, PDAs, and portable fax machines”

(I don’t know why fax machines…) but then later the sign started talking to the audience. It told us that the gold medal winner of last years Olympic arm curling was in the audience. Then it told us that the creator of the Human Genome Project (pandora.com) was in the audience, which was pretty cool. I’ve been to Pandora my fair share of times.Then the sign was like:

“Also, Kevin Green [I forget the actual name, I made that up] is in the audience. Kevin is just an average guy, but that’s all the more reason to give him a hand. Stand up, Kevin!”

…and…

“Also, it is Angelina Hernandez’s birthday today. Let’s all speak happy birthday to her. But remember, don’t sing. Words only. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Angelina. Happy birthday to you.”

But then the Blue Man Group came out. These guys are awesome. They don’t speak, and they don’t move their mouths, and they barely ever move their arms when they aren’t playing instruments, but they have a way of communicating with each other, rather hilariously, with just the way they look at each other. I don’t really know how to explain it other than saying they communicate with their eyebrows.Like, for instance, when they played 3 covers, they played “Whip It.” When they played it, one Blue Man played the main riff part, and another Blue Man played the bass parts. Then, when it came time for the *whip!* noise, the third Blue Man took out a handkercheif and whipped the middle Blue Man on the butt, then the first two stopped playing and just stared at him for like 10 seconds.

This video is a video I found on youTube of a Blue Man Group Skit. They actually performed this at the concert I went to, but it was a little different. It’s called “The Feast” and what they do is they take a lady from the audience, then they take her on stage, set up a table, and have a silent dinner of Lite Twinkies. This video is only about half of what happened at my show, but it’s still pretty funny. Some of it was improvised, because a lot of their jokes depend on the reactions of the lady on stage with them. See what I mean.

Okay, so I’m back from my trip now, so I’m gonna take the next few days to talk about cool stuff that happened. Today, Blue Man Group.

I didn’t really know anything about Blue Man Group before I went to go see them. I knew they we’re painted blue all the time, and I knew they played on pipe drums. I didn’t know that their music was instrumental, and that the “pipe drums” we’re PVC pipes, that, when hit with other, drumstick sized pipes, not only made percussive sound, but musical notes. They had one PVC pipe that was just a long, straight pipe, and connected to a long U-bend pipe that made the instrument kind of like a slide trombone.

They used the drumstick pipes to hit one end of the PVC pipe, but when the slide thing was pulled to make the pipe longer, he note became lower, just like a Trombone. The sound was always a beat, but it was also music. Then, they hooked another PVC pipe to the end of the slide pipe, and that made the notes lower, and gave the pipe a broader range of notes it could hit. They could move the slide in the center to lower or higher the notes, then they can slide the new pipe to change the notes moreso. It’s really hard to try and describe to someone, but it’s awesome to watch.

I saw Blue Man Group in concert off a limb (yesterday, check the time on this post) today. It was incredible. I’ll write a big long summary of it tomorrow or the next day, but for now I gotta get some Z’s. Night.