Infrequently a band comes along whose music, whose entire gestalt of existence, stir the souls of dedicated audiophiles and average listeners with equal impact, leaving their audiences breathless and stunned, spellbound with disbelief at the wonders they have just witnessed.

Prepare yourself. Blue Man Group is such a band.

Imagine a dark stage. Curious shapes hide in the darkness, which, when seen under suitable illumination, stand revealed as unearthly structures. Twirling colored ropes. Whirling water tornadoes. Luminous pipe installations litter the stage (you will do a sincere double-take when you realize these are musical instruments!), their very design confusing your senses.

Like the PVC Instrument. This conglomeration of PVC pipe sections is played with a series of handheld foam rubber paddles, in the manner of a percussive device. The resulting rhythms possess a distinctly ethereal quality.

Like the Tubulum. Comprised of a collection of PVC pipes of differing lengths set into a metal chassis, this apparatus is similar to the PVC Instrument, but its notes are primarily in the bass range. The Tubulum is struck with sticks rather than paddles.

A variant of this is the Backpack Tubulum. Worn by the musician, it allows the performer to move around while playing a trio of pipes which arch over the musician's head, descending to terminate at shoulder level. Other tubes are attached to the unit's back; these are designed to fire rockets into the air during the performance.

Or the Drumbone. This long, curved assemblage of PVC pipes is so large that it requires the support of all three Blue Men. The instrument is actually three sections: the terminator ends slide back-and-forth on the central pipe. While two of the musicians manipulate the sliding sections, the third musician strikes one end of the unit with sticks.

Other curious instruments include: the Cimbalom, an antique hammer dulcimer from Hungary; the Shaker Gong, a flat metal container filled with ball bearings that is suspended from taut lengths of surgical tubing, played with a large, padded mallet, and produces a sustained metallic rattlesnake-like sound; the Big Drum, a big drum with a diameter considerably in excess of a man's height; and the Drum Wall, which is more a theatric device, being a two-story structure possessing seven individual percussion stations.

Since the early '90s, Blue Man Group has been doing their "Tubes" show off Broadway in New York City (with performances in Boston, Chicago, and recently in Los Angeles and Las Vegas). The band has performed numerous times on "The Tonight Show". During one such appearance, they presented Jay Leno with a quivering edible gelatinous mound about two feet in mean diameter. In another appearance, they buried the audience in tear-resistant toilet paper.

Finally, in 1999, the band released a 58-minute CD of their incredible music: "Audio" (CD on Blue Man Group Records, under exclusive license to Virgin Records America)

While the three Blue Men primarily play their devised instruments, the music is also thick with guitar, bass and traditional percussion (not to mention a few oddball instruments like an electric dog toy) provided by Larry Heinemann, Ian Pai, Christian Dyas and Todd Perlmutter. These four (who often appear in performance in exotic costumes and body-paint different from the three main Blue Men) not only contribute to the performance of this music, but play a part in the composition too.

The CD begins with a wavering, seemingly synthesized hiss that is actually an example of the Air Poles. Enter PVC percussives, then guitar, then bass, then more percussives (natural and tubular). A sudden explosion of power chords and monster drums -- in an excruciatingly tasty melody. From the very start, the Blue Man Group have captured your attention with deviant sounds, with passionate melody, with dynamic performance.

Percussion-dominated, this music also reeks with the glorious riffs of snarling guitar mastery. The guitars are every bit as much in-your-face as the exuberantly pounding drums. Growling, sliding, squealing -- the guitars rock! Pound, pummel, beat and syncopate -- the drums evoke the air of a far-future tribal tempo, intricate yet crisply unnatural.

Sneakily crawling through this overt mix are the Blue Men with their weirdling sonic devices, lending the powerful music an edge of otherworldliness. Their swishing sounds and eerie percussion and further oddities (such as ribbon crasher, extension cord bull roarer or piano smasher) lurk like snickering specters in the haze of the smoldering lava flow of the blazing guitars and colossal drumming. There is a unique beauty in the way the tuneage flows from dynamic outbursts to more pensive tempos, like a drifting cloud of colorful mist transforming into an expanding nebula shoot full of rapidly ricocheting electrical discharges.

Beyond all this flash and strangeness, the music itself is quite outstanding. The riffs are dramatic, the pace is swift and hypnotic, the compositions are delightful and savagely epic. The urge to dance is quite unavoidable, listeners may find themselves thrashing about in their seats, happily undulating to the Blue Man Group's compelling melodies. This stuff is one of the most incredible fusions of surf music and power rock you are liable to encounter. There's even a touch of spaghetti western soundtrack going on every once in a while, generating an arid openness to those melodies.

This music celebrates dynamics and strangeness. It also possesses a friendly sense of humor. The melodies are upwardly uplifting, containing little darkness in their intensity.

Positive existence through weirdness.

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