The Original Blue Man Group
The year; 1993. The location: The Palladium in New York City. I was one of the managers with the New Music Seminar. This particular night, I was working the Palladium where several now bigtime artists were performing and showcasing. The big event was handling one of the hottest new performance groups around. Their stage setup was one of the most elaborate I had seen to date.
The group’s name; Blue Man Group. Yeah ,the original Blue Man Group. They did a show back then called, “Tubes”, part rock group, part performance art. I had met Chris Wink, one of the founders of the group just before they went on. Not only was he totally blue, but had so much apparatus within his blackish uniform, I couldn’t figure out how he and the other two were going to perform effectively.
Blue man group would eventually become so popular that there were several clone groups created the world over, with performances in front of a total of 17 million people. People ask me all the time, why do they paint themselves blue? They made that decision to set an example for social activism in honor of the blue of our oceans.
Their drums, made of PVC pipes along with other innovative performance props immediately set them apart from any other group in the world. They also had stacked vertical “containers” that held each live musician performing all of the other instruments you hear during the show.
If you have not experienced the magic of Blue Man Group. Do it. They will not disappoint! Here’s a great video that shows the elaborate stage setup and personal uniform apparatus I was speaking to.
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