ROCK MUSIC Success comes out of the Blue

The Blue Man Group is on tour to promote its debut album.
By JOHN PATRICK GATTA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
It's not easy being Blue ... especially when the summer temps reach the upper 80s, humidity makes everything sticky and you're dressed in long sleeves and slacks with your head, neck and hands coated with cobalt-tinted greasepaint.
That's just one of the obstacles faced by the touring members of Blue Man Group as it treks across the U.S. promoting its debut rock album, "The Complex."
"It's extremely warm," said Tom Galassi, a five-year veteran from the Chicago company who is touring this summer as part of The Complex Tour. "We've added to the show now so that the Blue Man pours water over each other ... for very practical reasons. We were looking at it saying, 'That looks pretty good if we do it in a Blue Man way, if he knows exactly what he's doing, pouring water on his head the way rock stars do. So, it ended up fitting into the show and serving a nice purpose."
For those who have not seen Blue Man Group perform during its numerous appearances on "The Tonight Show" or on several Intel commercials, the nonspeaking figures represent the melding of performance art, technology, music and silent comedy. The stage makeup makes the characters visually stimulating, while a nod to silent film comic Buster Keaton is deserving because of the physicality of the performances.
"The Blue Man characters are like all of us. We're all just looking around and figuring things out and then at some point you're taught that you get up at this time and get a job and go to work and get a girlfriend or a boyfriend," Galassi said.
"There's this joy that you have when you're a little kid and it seems like it's harder and harder to get there when you get older. I saw the Blue Man character experience that kind of joy, and then I saw it in the audience as well at the end of the show."
Group history
Blue Man Group began as an artistic experiment on the streets of New York. Its three creators -- Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink -- moved their show to LaMama, New York's most prestigious experimental theater. Then, for the past decade, it has staked a spot at an off-Broadway theater, playing to nightly sellouts.
If BMG could make it there, then it could make it anywhere. While the original trio performs occasionally, they've left much of the onstage work to a company of Blue Men during long-running residences in Boston, Chicago, Berlin and Las Vegas.
Not content to revitalize the theater experience, Goldman, Stanton and Wink decided to turn their art-meets-comedy-meets-social commentary creative muse toward the rock and roll world. BMG released "Audio," an instrumental introduction to the trio's mix of self-made instruments and electronic enhancements. It was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album in 2000 and recently attained gold status (more than 500,000 units sold).
The straightforward song-oriented material that makes up much of "The Complex" receives a boost by special guests such as Dave Matthews, Gavin Rossdale (Bush) and turntablist Rob Swift.
Life themes
While the album is an attempt to attract a wider audience, it still incorporates BMG's lofty ideals in regards to modern life. The album's contents then spill over into the live production.
"I see 'The Complex' as having the same themes as the theater show but, by adding the vocals, it's made those themes a lot more apparent," Galassi said. "Then, with the video that goes along with 'The Complex' show, it's more spelled out in regards to isolation and having a persona, a cultural mask and the world being more populated than ever, yet we know fewer of the people that live around us and trying to get the sense of community back, a sense of sitting around the campfire telling stories.
"Simple things that don't involve being overloaded with information and a television screen and advertisements everywhere you go. It's about getting back to that place that we all have in common and not being stuck in a life that you feel like you can't get out of."
But, Galassi points out, similar to Blue Man Group's theatrical productions, the overall effect is meant to entertain as much as it is to comment on the world around us.
"We redid the show [following the first leg of the tour], spent a few weeks rewriting, and it's more like a play about a rock concert than it was before. There's a lot more things between songs in character. It seemed that people really wanted to see the Blue Man character."