Chicago Classical Music

Greetings from Las Vegas, where I just saw Blue Man Group at the Venetian. 

For info on a decidedly non-classical experience, including a hilarious faux-historical treatment of Blue Man Group's influence on rock music, visit http://blueman.com/about_bmg/rock.shtml.

I had a fabulous time.  The show is funny, touching at times, incredibly high in energy, and even containing some cool musical things that remind me of what might happen if Bobby McFerrin played plastic tubes instead of singing.  There were a few occasions when I found myself wondering, "Where is the substance here?"  But all in all it was great, and now I can say I've been there.

Whoever music-directed that show was very smart.  There was an erotic reference to tango, where they brought this young blonde woman up on stage, started playing a tango-like soundtrack, and had one of the Blue Men sort of flirting with her (in the middle of some funny antics involving Twinkies).  It strikes me now how quickly a few bars of a classical genre like that will evoke a mood. 

At one point in the proceedings, they had the three Blue Men each playing a plastic organ pipe-like thing, and there were three different tones (low, medium, high).  The sign overhead said, "If you have a low voice, sing with this note... AAAAAAAAAHHHH."  The singing from the crowd was pretty out of tune.  The higher the pitch went for the other two Blue Men, the worse the singing got.  The little funny segment was billed as "Gregorian chant / new age / group meditation" or something like that, and partly was a spoof of minimalism. 

Well, so much for my exposure to Vegas Culture!  I'm glad I live in Chicago.

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