Customer Reviews

Blue Man Group: How to Be a Megastar Live!

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The Blue Man Group return to their rock concert experience in their latest DVD, captured during their "How to Be a Megastar 2.0" tour. If you already own "The Complex" much of this material will be familiar as it nearly the same format as the group's previous rock concert tour. That's not necessarily a bad thing. As in "The Complex," "How to Be a Megastar" opens with "Above," which if you've seen/heard from "The Complex" you know is simply an amazing song. The concert presentation is exciting, with a screen obscuring the stage and only shadows of the Blue Men projected on the screen as, one by one, each takes to their PVC instruments to begin the melody, with a swirling of images of the band and the Blue Men as the song launches into guitar, drums, keyboards, bass, and percussion in an explosive cresendo. Awesome. The remainder of "How to Be a Megastar" essentially follows the same progression as "The Complex" with some new material and new rock conert movements. The premise of the tour is the Blue Men have purchased an "updated" rock concert experience manual from an infomercial and are incoporating the new material into the show. The band is amazing, as it was before in "The Complex." I miss the guest vocals of Tracy Bonham and Annette Strean of Venus Hum. Annette was gorgeous and belted out an exciting cover of "I Feel Love" in her unique style in "The Complex" and is replaced on the current tour with a new vocalist. She's fine, but it's hard to follow in the footsteps of Annette and Tracy.

Bonus material includes a music video for "I Feel Love"; a piece of comedy called "Mono Makes a Plea -- Save the TVs" campaign (bemoaning the switch to digital signals which will effect us all...) and finally, and perhaps most importantly, a documentary called "Inside the Tube." It features the founders of Blue Man (Phil Stanton, Chris Wink and Matt Goldman) as they discuss the group, the philosophy of the Blue Man and the evolution of Blue Man from a theatrical presentation to the rock concert experience of "The Complex." It's a fascinating insight; Stanton, Wink and Goldman are extremely intelligent and creative individuals with a lot of passion for what they do. As far as I know the documentary aired only on PBS during a fund raising drive, with the documentary being sold as an incentive gift for new PBS members. If my memory is correct the documentary was being sold for a $75 contribution; now you can watch it for free!

If you already own "The Complex" and are on the fence about purchasing "How to Be a Megastar," I would suggest it primarily for the documentary included in the DVD extras. The DVD also includes a CD version of the concert, so for less than $20 you're getting a DVD and audio CD; a great deal. If you are new to Blue Man I would recommend starting with "Blue Man Group - The Complex Rock Tour Live" to see what you think. I think you will enjoy it.

When Blue Man Group created a touring rock concert with The Complex, they recorded and released a DVD. It was, at best, a tease to get you to see the stage shows, since the tour ended about the same time. The DVD was horribly flawed. It wasn't mastered correctly as anamorphic widescreen, but rather it was letterboxed. The audio mix was questionable. There were visible compression artifacts. The exposure during dark parts of the show was poor, and they tried to compensate with bad video effects. The editing was terrible too, with visuals not matching audio, and countless shots of a lame crowd. This new DVD corrects all of that.

When the How To Be A Megastar tour launched three years later, the show had been heavily tweaked. Through five legs of the tour, changes were made at least three times, and various performers came and went. The last iteration of the tour is what's represented on this DVD (and CD), and it's easily the tightest version of it.

Almost the entire show is represented, with a lively crowd and a great performance by the excellent band. The arena experience is captured with a lot of great wide shots, including a camera in the "crappy seats," to give you an idea of how "big" the show feels. The scope is much bigger than the fixed theatrical shows, though many of the same comedic bits are shared.

The video clips for the "Megastar" manual are included here, played by Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live fame, as well as the Floppie the Banjo Clown clips.

Peter Moore is the male vocalist for the show. He sang on several of the recorded tracks for The Complex, and on the original tour. The guy is all-pro and has a bit of a rockstar quality. He left the tour shortly after this show to pursue a solo record. Adrian Hartley is the female vocalist, who replaced Tracy Bonham during one of the interim tour legs. She gets a lot of crap for little reason other than not being Bonham, but she's capable on most of the songs. "I Feel Love" was delivered on The Complex tour (and recording) with Annette Strean from Venus Hum (who also opened on that tour), and admittedly it's hard to stack up against her pipes. The absence of Bonham also means that they have no violinist for "Baba O'Riley," but I maintain that it's just different, not better or worse.

As I said, the music is a lot tighter throughout the show. Where we were once left with just the Blue Man Voiceover guy, the band plays. Several pieces from the theatrical show are therefore worked in to the show, and it flows more like a Top 40 radio station than an orchestra concert with an intermission. It keeps the energy level up. We get some fresh arrangements on a number of songs as well, and Moore and Hartley complement each other well. "Sing Along" in particular is given a Mexican feel (if Mexican music used air poles), complete with the horn section from a Mariachi band. Newer pieces like the adaptation of the wire man routine from the stage shows, in this case "Light Suits," drive toward the fake ending, and the newer song "Rock and Go" really capture the old fashioned rock concert finale the way few "real" rock concerts do.

The special features include the original "I Fell Love" (with Strean from Venus Hum) and a video piece that was dropped mid-tour, with Armisen assuming the role of "Mono" with a guitarist called "The Side" (like U2, get it?). He makes his plea for saving old CRT TV's. It's followed by the TV routine made famous in the stage shows.

They've also included the documentary "Inside The Tube" from PBS. It has been edited slightly for the DVD. For example, the original program had a bit where they showed video for the light suits, something they were "working on," but has since been worked into this tour and also some of the stage shows. The biggest benefit here is that you don't have to sit through half-hour intermissions of PBS asking for money.

The CD is really the icing on the cake. Just as the iTunes-only release of the stage show from The Venetian, you get an appreciation for how good the band is live. My only complaint is that seem to mix the giant bass drum too low, which is odd because the show is so much about percussion.

Overall, this is the video that I think Blue Man Group fans have been waiting for, for a long time. My hope is that it's also a turning point, because much of this material has been around now for a lot of years, and I think fans are dying for something new. What we've seen to this point has been more of an evolution than anything else. At this point, they need something new.

Blue Man Group: How to Be a Megastar Live! [Blu-ray]

A feast for the eye's and ears. Almost as good as going to the actual show without having to worry about getting wet or having a stick cam shoved in your mouth.

On the Blu Ray version, be sure to go into Setup from the main menu. There is an uncompressed 5.1 PCM audio option. It's only listed as English 5.1 on the cover.

This is one of the first blu-ray titles that I purchased. It was high on my list because I loved "The Complex Rock Tour" on DVD, but the video quality on that DVD was terrible.

The video quality on this "Megastar" blu-ray disk is good, but in every other aspect the "The Complex Rock Tour" is superior to "Megastar".

Bottom line: the "Megastar" concert is disappointing. The blue men themselves seem to be just going through the motions, the audience often seems bored, the sound quality is muddled, and the attempt to use "infomercials" during segues is almost embarrassing to watch. Pondering what went wrong, it seems that the focus has shifted to everything other than the 3 blue men, to the point that the title characters seem to be an afterthought. If the theme of "The Complex" was "watch these quirky guys make amazing music on odd instruments", the theme of "Megastar" is "listen to this backup band, with some disinterested guys dressed up in blue added for free."

About half way through "Megastar" the song "I Feel Love" is performed. This was a highlight of "The Complex", featuring Annette Strean of Venus Hum in the electrified dress. I have to give "Megastar" credit for boldness in its attempt to perform this song without Annette Strean, but unfortunately the attempt succeeded mainly in illustrating how lame "Megastar" is compared to "The Complex."

As another reviewer said, if you haven't seen "The Complex" you may like "Megastar", but if you have seen "The Complex" you will find "Megastar" uninspiring--it has no soul.

I saw the Blue Man Group live in Boston several years ago, and have been a fan since they first started getting noticed. Their anti-style drew me in, their messages tickled me, their visuals enthralled me, but their music kept me.

So you can imagine my joy a couple years ago when I saw that HDnet was going to show this concert in HiDef. I blocked out the time on that Sunday, turned on my cable, and was prepared to be enthralled.

I was horribly disappointed. I literally called my cable provider and complained.

The problem was not with the content, but rather with the highly compressed delivery system. The strobes and fire in "One of These Days", the rapid motion of the drum sticks and whips in "Shadows Part 2", the paint drums in "Your Attention", the confetti and full-stage views in "Baba O'Riley", all pushed way past the limits of any kind of a cable TV, satellite delivery, or HD video download service. Macroblocking in the rapid strobe scenes and the paint drops (which wound up looking like large squares rather than droplets) made the video look like an early VHS tape rather than a 2 megapixel, 21st century, HiDef recording.

So, I've been just as eagerly anticipating this Blu-Ray release. And this time, I've not been disappointed. With data rates regularly exceeding 35Mbps in the high motion scenes, peaking at over 49Mbps for some of the most complex transitions in the climax of "Baba O'Riley", this disc exemplifies "why Blu-Ray".

Those who claim that HD downloads will replace physical media may be right someday, but that day is not here yet, it will not be here any time soon, and this disc shows why.

This Blu-Ray was superbly crafted, with the quality of audio and video paramount. It's a worthy addition to your collection, and when a friend wants to see how well Blu-Ray can handle difficult material, pull this one out. If you're (un)lucky enough to have HDnet Sunday Concerts showing this concert on cable or satellite at the same time, you'll easily be able to see what I'm talking about, and convincingly demonstrate it.

If you like Blue Man Group and don't yet have a Hi Def display and Blu-Ray player, this is a great reason to finally make the jump.

Kudos to HDnet for recording this, and props to Blink Digital for the superb Blu-Ray production!

I have quite the collection of filmed concerts, and this is a good contender for my favorite. It is well filmed, almost to make you feel involved, and the audio and visuals are great. It is just ... fun!

The Blue Man Group epitomizes entertainment. From their opening salvo to the final restrain of the last song, this disc shows exactly how entertaining the band can be. Their unique approach to playing, combined with their slightly twisted humor, draws the viewer in and captivates them. While this IS an extension of the act started during the Complex Tour, this disc is much more than just a rehash with a few new songs thrown in.

By the time the show ends, you too will know how to be a megastar.

But the real enjoyment of having the Blu-Ray disc is in the extras. There you get to meet the guys who started it all, hear them explain how they approached their unique creative process and how they strive to be more than just an entertaining act. Each of their shows is an experience, and this disc spills the beans on how it is all done. There are several videos in the extras that enhance owning the disc even further.

You'll never believe that grown men in weird costumes, beating on some plastic pipes while catching marshmallows thrown from incredible distances and then spewing paint onto a canvas could be so entertaining, but start to finish this disc is filled with one pleasure stacked upon another.

This disc, just 1 among the hundreds of performing art discs that I own, is by far my most favorite and the most entertaining. I can, and do, watch this one over and over and over. You will to.

I have this DVD and like it a lot. I bought a blu-ray for best quality.
There is nobody who does not like because it's fun.
If you are looking for a show that pleases all ages and people, this is one. Very good audio and production.

Blue Man Group's How to Be a Megastar Live! is great fun in so many ways. The content is humorous at times and thought-provoking in others. The music is great as well, blending almost native tone pieces with hard rock and inspiring vocals. The visual performance ensures your eyes rarely leave the screen.

The sound and visual quality of the recording are stellar. Deep bass and LFE is almost always present due to the highly percussive nature of the performances, while the rest of the guitars and vocals are extremely clear and precise. Surround imaging is well steered. The surround and surround back channels are active and enveloping without being overused. The most impressive part of this transfer is the great use of dynamic range. Spoken and non-musical parts of the performance are at appropriately comfortable levels, but when the music picks up so does the SPL. This may wreak havoc on people listening through tiny TV speakers, but will be greatly appreciated by anyone with a quality HT system.

We saw them live in New York,the theater in New York is tiny. It is only 6 seats on each side. We had front row balcony and really got into the show. I bought the Blu-Ray DVD and was very happy with it. They do the show on a grander scale. I was amazed on the size of the production. Not that I didn't like New York where they get right next to you. I enjoyed both the live event and the DVD.