07
Oct
2003
Kalen Allmandinger says that his mother can always identify him at the start of a show. He's in profile, and "she can always tell by my skinny neck," Allmandinger said.
Of course, most mothers can readily identify their kids, but the task is a little more daunting if yours is one of three mute guys on stage with a bald pate, covered in blue grease paint. Allmandinger is a Blue Man, one of about 40 people who play the creative, experimenting, but silent character in four stage shows around the United States and, now, in a rock-concert tour.
Allmandinger will have a homecoming of sorts next week, when The Blue Man Group brings its Complex Rock Tour to The Mark. Allmandinger, a native of Walcott, expects to have roughly 70 friends and family members in the audience at the Quad Cities show next Friday.
Allmandinger joined the troupe in September 2000, after he finished studying acting at Roosevelt University in Chicago. He had originally tried out for the Blue Man Group after his freshman year, but "they told me to finish school and keep in touch." At his first audition, Allmandinger said, "I didn't even know what it [Blue Man Group] was."
Although he studied acting in college, Allmandinger said he's not sure he ever envisioned an acting career. Drums have always been his first love, and in Blue Man Group, he's able to use both his acting and percussion skills.
The Blue Man Group is most familiar to audiences from a series of commercials for Intel and numerous appearances on The Tonight Show, but the troupe started in 1987 as underground performance art in New York City by longtime friends Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, and Chris Wink. The show Tubes was developed to showcase the Blue Men, their custom percussion instruments (mostly made from PVC pipes and rods), and their playful, audience-spraying experiments with art and food. That show has grown, with long runs in Boston, Chicago, and Las Vegas. A new show is planned to open in Berlin in May.
The theatrical nature took a backseat to music with 1999's Grammy-nominated, all-instrumental Audio album, and this year the Blue Man Group made its first foray into rock music with The Complex. It is from that record that the current traveling concert derives most of its material, again putting performance at the forefront.
And most reviewers have noted that it's difficult to fully appreciate the album The Complex until you've seen the stage show and can watch the music being created live with the Blue Man Group's instruments. Yes, it's rock music, but it's not made like rock music, and its layers of percussion and textures elevate it into something special. The Blue Man Group is adept at everything from trippy techno to hard-rock crunch.
It's important to note that this isn't some traveling show with Blue Men a tier below those in the long-running shows. "You're getting the real thing," said Manny Igrejas, the Blue Man Group's publicist. Allmandinger, for example, comes from the Boston ensemble. He said he had to try out for the tour, with the auditions focusing on members' musical abilities.
Both the album and show feature the Blue Man Group sharing tracks with guest vocalists and bands. On the tour, singer Tracy Bonham and the band Venus Hum open for Blue Man Group and are an integral part of the stage show.
Igrejas describes the show as "Blue Man learning to be a rock star, and teaching the audience some aspects of rock stardom."
Allmandinger views it differently. Rock stardom is all about the charismatic individual, the single focus of attention, so the three Blue Men - they're always a trio, and never alone - play "kind of anti-rock stars," Allmandinger said. "Ego is not part of it." Instead, he says the show is about "how to have a rock concert." The show becomes a voyage of discovery with these "inquisitive, curious beings," as Allmandinger describes the Blue Men.
In its first leg, the tour was basically a musical performance, but The Complex Rock Tour has evolved, expanding on the album's conceit - performance as an instruction manual for rock music. The album and show strives to do for rock what Leonard Bernstein did in his Young People Concerts, except that instead of being merely an instruction tool, the performers are learning along with the audience. The track "Time to Start" instructs: "In a moment, it will be time to execute Rock Concert Movement Number Three, the up-and-down jumping motion."
"There was less of a story," Allmandinger said of the first incarnation of The Complex Rock Tour. "The character wasn't really developed." Now in its third leg, the tour has the Blue Men finding and following "a rock-show manual," Allmandinger said.
"The characters are trying to get this elevated group experience," Allmandinger explained, trying to get the people to bob their heads, pump their fists.
There's certainly a difference of audience scale between the Tubes show and this tour, which is particularly challenging for a troupe that tries to get a crowd as involved as possible. Allmandinger said the Boston theatre holds a little more than 500 people, and "we're playing to crowds of thousands. In the smaller show, you can have the 'little moment.' That doesn't read the same here. That's the challenge: to include everyone."
The tour features four Blue Men, although only three perform on any given night. (In addition to Allmandinger, the tour includes a performer from Springfield, Illinois - Tom Galassi - strengthening the middle-America connection.) There are three defined roles - Allmandinger described them as "mischievous," "strong, grounded, and direct," and "frenetic" - and three of the Blue Men always play the same character. Allmandinger gets to do all three.
As Blue Man Group has grown, it has certainly lost some of its underground credibility. When asked about the tension between art and commerce, Allmandinger paused. "I think something can be both" commercially successful and artistic, he said. "It's not easily definable, but it is a performance." He eventually settled on calling Blue Man Group "large-scale professional performance art."
Allmandinger enjoys Blue Man Group partly because it leaves him time during the day to make music and films. But he also loves the persona. Although the Blue Man is a defined character, each performer brings something to the role. "It's a pretty fun mode to operate in," he said. "We're finding out new things about what the character can do."
Tickets to the Blue Man Group are $43.50 and $33.50. The October 17 show starts at 8 p.m., with opening acts Tracy Bonham and Venus Hum. Tickets are available at The Mark box office or Ticketmaster outlets. For more information, visit (http://www.themark.org).
Allmandinger will have a homecoming of sorts next week, when The Blue Man Group brings its Complex Rock Tour to The Mark. Allmandinger, a native of Walcott, expects to have roughly 70 friends and family members in the audience at the Quad Cities show next Friday.
Allmandinger joined the troupe in September 2000, after he finished studying acting at Roosevelt University in Chicago. He had originally tried out for the Blue Man Group after his freshman year, but "they told me to finish school and keep in touch." At his first audition, Allmandinger said, "I didn't even know what it [Blue Man Group] was."
Although he studied acting in college, Allmandinger said he's not sure he ever envisioned an acting career. Drums have always been his first love, and in Blue Man Group, he's able to use both his acting and percussion skills.
The Blue Man Group is most familiar to audiences from a series of commercials for Intel and numerous appearances on The Tonight Show, but the troupe started in 1987 as underground performance art in New York City by longtime friends Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton, and Chris Wink. The show Tubes was developed to showcase the Blue Men, their custom percussion instruments (mostly made from PVC pipes and rods), and their playful, audience-spraying experiments with art and food. That show has grown, with long runs in Boston, Chicago, and Las Vegas. A new show is planned to open in Berlin in May.
The theatrical nature took a backseat to music with 1999's Grammy-nominated, all-instrumental Audio album, and this year the Blue Man Group made its first foray into rock music with The Complex. It is from that record that the current traveling concert derives most of its material, again putting performance at the forefront.
And most reviewers have noted that it's difficult to fully appreciate the album The Complex until you've seen the stage show and can watch the music being created live with the Blue Man Group's instruments. Yes, it's rock music, but it's not made like rock music, and its layers of percussion and textures elevate it into something special. The Blue Man Group is adept at everything from trippy techno to hard-rock crunch.
It's important to note that this isn't some traveling show with Blue Men a tier below those in the long-running shows. "You're getting the real thing," said Manny Igrejas, the Blue Man Group's publicist. Allmandinger, for example, comes from the Boston ensemble. He said he had to try out for the tour, with the auditions focusing on members' musical abilities.
Both the album and show feature the Blue Man Group sharing tracks with guest vocalists and bands. On the tour, singer Tracy Bonham and the band Venus Hum open for Blue Man Group and are an integral part of the stage show.
Igrejas describes the show as "Blue Man learning to be a rock star, and teaching the audience some aspects of rock stardom."
Allmandinger views it differently. Rock stardom is all about the charismatic individual, the single focus of attention, so the three Blue Men - they're always a trio, and never alone - play "kind of anti-rock stars," Allmandinger said. "Ego is not part of it." Instead, he says the show is about "how to have a rock concert." The show becomes a voyage of discovery with these "inquisitive, curious beings," as Allmandinger describes the Blue Men.
In its first leg, the tour was basically a musical performance, but The Complex Rock Tour has evolved, expanding on the album's conceit - performance as an instruction manual for rock music. The album and show strives to do for rock what Leonard Bernstein did in his Young People Concerts, except that instead of being merely an instruction tool, the performers are learning along with the audience. The track "Time to Start" instructs: "In a moment, it will be time to execute Rock Concert Movement Number Three, the up-and-down jumping motion."
"There was less of a story," Allmandinger said of the first incarnation of The Complex Rock Tour. "The character wasn't really developed." Now in its third leg, the tour has the Blue Men finding and following "a rock-show manual," Allmandinger said.
"The characters are trying to get this elevated group experience," Allmandinger explained, trying to get the people to bob their heads, pump their fists.
There's certainly a difference of audience scale between the Tubes show and this tour, which is particularly challenging for a troupe that tries to get a crowd as involved as possible. Allmandinger said the Boston theatre holds a little more than 500 people, and "we're playing to crowds of thousands. In the smaller show, you can have the 'little moment.' That doesn't read the same here. That's the challenge: to include everyone."
The tour features four Blue Men, although only three perform on any given night. (In addition to Allmandinger, the tour includes a performer from Springfield, Illinois - Tom Galassi - strengthening the middle-America connection.) There are three defined roles - Allmandinger described them as "mischievous," "strong, grounded, and direct," and "frenetic" - and three of the Blue Men always play the same character. Allmandinger gets to do all three.
As Blue Man Group has grown, it has certainly lost some of its underground credibility. When asked about the tension between art and commerce, Allmandinger paused. "I think something can be both" commercially successful and artistic, he said. "It's not easily definable, but it is a performance." He eventually settled on calling Blue Man Group "large-scale professional performance art."
Allmandinger enjoys Blue Man Group partly because it leaves him time during the day to make music and films. But he also loves the persona. Although the Blue Man is a defined character, each performer brings something to the role. "It's a pretty fun mode to operate in," he said. "We're finding out new things about what the character can do."
Tickets to the Blue Man Group are $43.50 and $33.50. The October 17 show starts at 8 p.m., with opening acts Tracy Bonham and Venus Hum. Tickets are available at The Mark box office or Ticketmaster outlets. For more information, visit (http://www.themark.org).
