at the theatre
Upon arriving at the theatre, we stood outside and were gathered together by a long-haired guy in Transitions glasses (*snort* my dad's an optometrist, har har *snort*). He proceeded to outline the "rules"... It almost seemed condescending, but I realized I WAS with a high school group, and the only reason BMG would be saying all of that stuff is because they must have had problems with similar groups in the past (which sucks). (I don't remember getting "spoken to" a few years back, though.) Anywho, the guy (I missed his name, if he gave it) went over seating, food/drinks, the meet-and-greet, and respect. The part that stuck out the most to me was about the meet-and-greet... He mentioned something like, "the Blue Men ARE human beings, in makeup... so don't grab them, don't touch them unless they say it's OK... and just treat them with the respect you'd treat anyone el--no, wait, treat them with more respect than you'd treat anyone." Now of course that makes total sense, but my first thought was that it was unusual for him to stress that the Blue Men are indeed human underneath that paint--I mean, common sense already tells us that, but normally BMG people are vague about that, and avoid calling the actors "actors" or "humans," as if to keep the mystique of it. And I almost laughed out loud upon the "don't touch them" part--oops. I mean, I'm not GRABBY, and I try to read the Blue Men (if we don't already know each other--like with Kalen) to see if they'll mind me hugging them randomly (LOL), but I made a mental note not to do that this time around. Didn't want to get in trouble or anything!! *squirmyface*

We ended up with seats spread out through the balcony, and Jill and I sat in section G (the right side of the balcony, so... |__|<--G), a few seats from the corner. Not bad--the balcony certainly was an interesting perspective, but we had a little trouble seeing stage left at times. I'd never sat in the balcony before, so I was happy to be there--since at shows I pay for, I'm unlikely to pass up good floor seats for balcony seats, hehe.

show highlights (includes spoilers)
--During Shadow Drumming, I figured Eric in Center, and Jonathan C. (JC) on the right... The one on the left looked oddly familiar, but I knew it wasn't Mike or Rick, and apparently Jonathan T. was no longer in Boston... And then I realized, it must be Jake (newbie Blue Man who I'd seen during a meet and greet in NYC)! I knew he was coming to Boston, but not when--I was psyched to see him. =)
--Eric caught something like 33 marshmallows, flawlessly--only one fell to the ground, after bouncing off his existing mound. Eric was dead on all night, seeming to bubble with energy and wit. Later, when catching the Toblerone... The thrower was on-target for the first two bits, but on the third, waved his arm around as if he was trying to fake out the Blue Man... Eric didn't look impressed, and when the guy finally threw the candy, Eric just stood there staring, letting the candy bounce off his shoulder. LOL. It was as if to say "don't toy with me, sir."
--During Crunch, not only did the Blue Man on the Right (JC) spew cereal into the audience, but Center (Eric) did too. Apparently Eric was really good at it, because the whole front section squealed loudly when he spit at them. When JC spit at Eric on the last Crunch, Eric glared at him--he has great expressions, especially those in the "WTF?!" category. Hehe.
--I almost sang along with "You're Late"--good thing I stopped myself, because that would have been really embarrassing.
--Jake kicked ass on Drumbone, and seemed to dance while he played. Actually, all three Blue Men threw in little dance moves and head-bobs here and there. Also, I really like the way the new Drumbone (as well as the addition of "Freebird") pulls the band into the foreground, whereas in the old Tubes, they were never "pointed out," so to speak.
--The twinkie girl was all right--she seemed pretty shy to start, but eventually tried to joke back at the Blue Men... Anywho... When Jake extinguished the candle, he also nailed Center's flowers, knocking them clear off the table. Eric and JC reacted perfectly, immediately looking over the table in disbelief. After Jake decided it was safe to put the extinguisher away, the three Blue Men leaned over the table, peering at the fallen flowers. JC reached down for them and just baaaaarely snagged them and put them back on the table. Later, the girl opened her twinkie, and JC's, pretty willingly... but when she had Eric's, she started mimicking Jake's frantic "gotta-get-it-open! *wrinklewrinkle*" act, with a fake clueless look on her face. Eric gave her an intense stare, and pointedly showed her one of the empty wrappers. She still didn't respond, so JC eventually coaxed her to open it. When she finally did, JC looked at Eric (and might've rolled his eyes) with a total "FINALLY!!" look of exasperation. The presentation of the to-go box was entirely efficient--like a factory assembly line, haha. *pack-slide-DING!* where DING=the pretty pink bow. Or something.
--"PVC IV" was really incredible... It takes a while to get going, but once it does... Wow. The Blue Men were right on, and melded into Three-As-One beautifully. I still miss House though, which extended on that feeling of one being going crazy on a three-tiered instrument... I was looking for a spot in "PVC IV" where the two Blue Men on the left ran together in unison-but-harmony, but I didn't see it, and I'm guessing what I'm remembering was actually in House--d'oh!
--Jake does the best Pelvic Exercise I've ever seen! Hahahah... when the voice directed him to "move your pelvis in a way that is pleasing" (or whatever), he rolled around real slow and the audience reacted with a rowdy cheer. At that, he stopped dead, staring innocently as if to say, "what? what'd I do?" But when he broke into the 4-beat pattern, I couldn't stop laughing, haha... He just snapped into place, with hilariously jarring motions, LOL. He seemed particularly "awwwww, do we have to stop?" when it was over. (Oh, and JC didn't have any trouble with the routine this time. ;) hehehe.)
--When RCM #4 (Behind-the-Head-Leg-Stretch) was announced, Jake, who was at the front of stage right, in front of the PVC, started to do it! :o For a moment there I thought he really WAS going to do it, because he was getting pretty close, and not losing his balance at all, lmao. That would have been insane, INSANE!!
--For "Like a Virgin," Eric missed one of the first notes ("Vir-"), and glared at the tube like it was the tube's fault, LOL. The audience started singing along really loudly--the karaoke bit lives, after all! Haha. Actually, it was really strange not seeing the LED signs on the front of the PVC instruments, now that both "White Rabbit" and "Lose Yourself" are out.
--"Utne Wireman" is still enthralling... The Wireman was incredible, not only seeming to float over the stage, but whoever was playing him (the Stick player, who turned out to be Victor) was moving around a lot, making the Wireman bounce around from left to right. It occured to me that the Wireman is the living, 3-D version of poor Iconman in the Animation video... Hmmmm.
--When Eric had the wands, it was one of the most hilarious things to see him direct Jake to bounce around... Jake was pratically bouncing already, and was eager to dance around. Then Eric joined him, so the two Blue Men ended up a few yards apart, bouncing around in unison--yay! JC pulled a spiffy spazflail, too, but alas, was stopped before he was allowed to get too crazy (BOOO!!). Happily, the already-enthusiastic audience went along with Eric's antics right away... So he had everyone fist-pump, then double-fist pump... then alternate fist-pump, which looked REALLY silly from the balcony, LOL. It looked like some giant aerobics class, hahahahah.
--When Klein rolled around, I spotted JC a few seats away, being all stealthy in the darkness, LOL. He ended up picking the guy sitting right next to him to bring onstage--who happened to be one of the guys from our group. It was a lot of fun to listen to the shrieking laughter of Nick's classmates who thought (or imagined) he was really being smashed on a canvas (apparently he deserves it). Hahah.
--"Endless Column" was particularly aweing from the balcony... when those tubes fall from the ceiling, they fly down right in your line of vision, and spin around mesmerizingly... ooooooh, ahhhhh...
--The paper finale was so fun from the balcony! All three Blue Men wandered up and got the paper started before joining the chaos below... Since I was in front row, I got to pull the paper into bunches and hurl it over the edge. "Weeee!! *tosstoss*" Hahahah... Of course, since the balcony paper goes first, it's also over first, and pretty soon we were left to watch what was going on below. The front section was getting totally buried, but the Blue Men helped them out here and there, pulling big piles of paper off of them onto the stage. At other times, the Blue Men wandered the aisles, dancing and overseeing the craziness... One halt of the strobes revealed one Blue Man--Jake, I think--all wrapped up in paper like a mummy. LOL! He was spinning around in the paper and getting himself all tangled, hee hee. Meanwhile, Eric was dancing on someone's chair... It all looked like so much fun, and I wished I was down there! Haha.
--During the final bows, I just felt so damn proud! LOL. The performers had just put on an amazing, energy-filled show, and had wow'ed yet another audience. When the band came out, I gave a loud cheer, and was followed by someone in my group (which spurred an audience cheer)--yeehaw!

the (rushed) meet-and-greet
My ex-class advisor (a REAL chaperone) asked me to get her ticket signed for her, because she knew I was a crazy fan and would do so in a heartbeat... So I took her ticket and stayed with her as our group went down the stairs and out the door. Eric was standing only a few feet in front of the door, and after he signed a few other tickets, I stepped forward and held mine out for him. He obliged, and I gave him a big smile and thank you. Then I made to turn around and hand the ticket back to its owner, so I could get a picture of/with Eric, but she was gone--I suppose she didn't really want to be anywhere near the Blue Men, LOL. So I moved out of Eric's space to hand the ticket to Jill... Eric seemed to keep an eye on me until I left, so it's possible he recognized me from March... but after that stern pre-talk we got earlier (and seeing how busy/crowded this particular meet-and-greet was), I wasn't about to try and talk to him to find out, haha.

After handing the ticket off to Jill, I noticed the band standing nearby. I walked up behind them and tapped Victor (Stick player) softly on the shoulder. He turned around, and I said, "Victor, right?" and he confirmed. (I like to think that my pretending I'm not sure who they are makes me look less insane.) I immediately complimented him on his awesome Wireman, and he thanked me, saying that there was something wrong with it--one side wasn't lighting up or something. I told him I hadn't noticed, maybe because of the angle I was seeing it at... Jill was standing nearby like she was waiting for me, which made me all distracted, but eventually something blabbered out of my mouth to the effect of that we were there with my old high school ("I'm a chaperone! hahah, well not really"), and Victor asked where from (I think Jill answered coherently--I was way too "durhurh" to make any real sense). I also mentioned at some point that I'd seen his interview on the Library, and he said "you're the first person to say that!" I answered, "really?... well then, YEAH! *thumbs up*" as if to be all proud to be the first. Haha, I'm a nerd. I was getting the feeling that I had to hurry... so since I didn't recognize either of the other bandies, I said something about going to see Jake, then gave a final "awesome job *thumbs up*" for Victor, and ran away. *zooooom!*

As soon as Jake was free, I walked up to him for a picture... I didn't see anyone nearby from my group, so I decided to ask him for a long-arm shot. When I asked, he sort of blinked and looked at the camera quizically, then back to me, as if to say "what's this?" I pointed to the shutter and said, "here's the button..." and he gave me the same unsure look, not taking the camera. So I gently placed the camera in his left hand, and sidled up to his right side, posing. LOL. He looked from me to the camera and back a few times before pressing the button, and I took the camera back and showed him his good work:

He looked at the camera, then me, and gave a thumbs-up (yay! hehe). I thanked him and backed off, to find a couple girls from my group, who were waiting for autographs--they both already had blue kisses (a big improvement from most of our group, who were already congregating on the other side of the road). Unfortunately, my camera was for some reason taking in too much light, and it took me a couple shots to figure out how to fix that--it probably took less than a minute, but it sure felt like a long time, oops, haha. Anywho, it's almost unnerving how much Jake resembles Matthew Banks in this picture, hehe... When I saw him in NYC (during a meet-and-greet, I didn't see him perform), I thought he looked similar--especially his eyes. And his performance ended up reminding me of Matthew, too--amazing drummer, balance of intensity/silliness, appeared ready to bust out dancing at any moment (hee hee)... It was a real treat to see Jake onstage. =)

I decided to head back to Eric to grab a picture before I left (I've got time right?!), so I quickly made my way to him. He spotted me before it was actually my turn, and looked expectantly when I walked up to him again. Since I had noticed my group starting to leave, I made it quick by hopping up next to him and grabbing a long-arm shot myself. But I guess my hand was shaking, because Eric lifted his hand where mine was and made it shake back and forth, while giving me a little smirklook as if to say "what is this? What were you doing?" Haha, totally mocking me and making fun of me, under the guise of an innocent Blue Man. Smartass! LMAO. I blushed and laughed, turning away to see what the picture looked like on the camera, saying, "hahah, I know, I shake!" The picture was obviously blurry (and if I can tell from the little screen on my camera, that means it's REALLY blurry), so I laughed again and murmured something about that he was right... (I cut myself out of this picture because I look THAT dumb--I was focusing too hard on taking the picture to smile correctly, LOL.)

He might have been looking over my shoulder to see the picture--I don't remember. I'm pretty sure I didn't say goodbye to him, rather, I just ran away a few yards, probably still blushing, LOL. Since the long-arm was a failure, I quickly got a solo shot of him (by the way, the band is in the backround--I don't know who the drummer (left) or zither-player (right) were, but Victor's in the middle)...

I smiled and thanked Eric, and then went off to look for my group. And uh... didn't see ANY of them. Shoot. I'm an awesome chaperone, LOL. The BMG fan in me was like, "they left before the Blue Men even went inside?! Pshaw!" Haha, even if I'm done meet-and-greeting, I'll stick around and watch, because Blue Men are funny (even when the joke's on you). So anywho, I jogged down Warrenton, hoping to see people from my group walking in some direction... but none to be seen. Shoot... I walked back to the theatre entrance to see if one of the REAL chaperones was waiting for stragglers, but instead ran into one of the high school seniors, who'd been in the bathroom (thank god! LOL). She had some sort of sense of direction and was able to get us on the right path to the bus--phew. Needless to say, I got some teasing upon return, haha... Jill: "now who's chaperoning who?" D'oh! Note to self: I really DO lose half my brain after a Blue Man show. Luckily, next time I'm at the Charles I will be in the company of a bunch of fans like me, who will totally understand my giddy shake-inducing stupor. *slams head on desk* Goodness, LOL.