For just one night the most popular color in Raleigh’s RBC Arena wasn’t red. Instead it was the technicolor cobalt blue that is the signature of Blueman Group. One of seven different BMG troupes that perform around the world, the entourage that descended on Raleigh for Sunday night’s show delighted a near-capacity audience.
   The show began thirty minutes before the lights dimmed as huge LED message boards and video screens invited the audience to participate by answering absurd questions with yelling and cleverly setting up a sight gag using cellphones later in the show.
   The opening act, DJ/ multi-media artist Mike Relm set the tone for the entire show with "a family friendly montage of pop clture." Mike used DVDJ technology, as he scratched and spun videos and records simultaneously.
   Blueman’s current tour, How to be a Megastar 2.0 draws on elements of their previous Complete Rock Tour, expanding on the "Rock Concert Manual" by "downloading" a new "how to manual." With it’s uhmpteen number of steps to be a Megastar, beginning with number 3 - head nodding to the beat, BMG and the How to be a Megastar 2.0 show was a rich and wonderful blend of visual and aural elements that combined to play off of, and pay tribute to some of rock and rolls’ iconic monster rock shows of the 70’s. From Led Zepplin to AC/DC to Van Halen and even some disco with Donna Summers "I Feel Love," BMG’s savvy use of hand-held and pre-recorded video and creative lighting effects was mesmerizing.
   The show opened with a silhouetted performance of each Blueman as they banged ladles on three separate apparatuses, all made of PVC tubing, each with its own resonance. With a crescendo the fabric screen dropped to the ground, blinding lights came up and the each Blueman stepped to the front of the stage. Dressed all in black, save for blue gloves, the blue skull caps and makeup gave the trio an other-worldly appearance. Throughout the show the only communication from the group would be through posture, gestures and various quizzical facial expressions, all of which conveyed an almost child-like innocence and bewilderment of discovery.
   Backed up by a high energy six-piece band plus a female vocalist, Blueman utilized the strength of video imagery and various lighting elements such as strobes, flexible neon tubing and LED clothing to augment the impact of the percussion-heavy trio. Using sight gags like a telescoping PVC instrument (that would look good in a Dr. Seuss book), water splattering drum sets, catching thrown marshmallows and paintballs with their mouth and handheld live video cameras, you suddenly begin to realize that the world of BMG is anything but naïve - it isn’t about how to be a megastar, rather it is a frightening glimpse into a world that can be - almost the same world portrayed in Fritz Lang’s epic 1927 masterpiece film Metropolis - a world of identity that is lost, not in industrialization as depicted by Lang, but in cubical spaces and internet anonymity, where no one ever touches another, and we are all alone together.
   The mastery of BMG is that they pull all of this together in a two and a half hour presentation that involves the entire audience, suckering them into their world and when the show is over no one realizes that they are the reason for the show and that BMG is just a very loud and bright wake-up call for the audience to put down their cell phone or their computer and reach out and touch someone. Just make sure they aren’t blue. .”