I went to the live stage show on Saturday September 1 called “Mythbusters: Behind the Myths” that has been touring around the country. The show is  look behind the production of the Mythbusters show about science. It was here in Las Vegas at the Palazzo hotel and casino and was held in a concert auditorium.

I enjoy Mythbusters and was very excited to go to the show. Jamie and Adam have a good love/hate chemistry that makes their interaction perfect for a stage performance. I thought Adam’s energy was especially suited for the format and he engaged the audience throughout the show. Because so many of the myths challenged by the show require extensive planning and preparation that is then often edited into nice 1 hour shows on TV, the live show could not “test” any new myths. The show was more about some of the science behind tests the show has done in the past. It also wanted to allow many audience members to participate in live working myths.

Audience participation was mixed with question and answer forums with both of the show’s stars. The supporting cast of the show were not present, but their antics and stories were referenced throughout. Jamie let us into some of the mthys that were too dangerous for him to perform and were thus thrown to Tory. Jamie also said that he was willing to do more stunts for the show, but the insurance companies axed most of his ideas. Adam opened up about his favorite myth and it was the “lead balloon” myth they busted.

The guys used some previous myths as props for the show to prove that they were not magic tricks. Adam hung from an rope supported by two phone books combined by overlapping their pages one by one. The show dragged in some places and some of the large scale experiments did not go as planned due to what seemed like lack of practice.  For example an audience member who was dressed in medieval armor to be shot with a super paintball gun had to use a make shift helmet and duct tape because the armor helmet did not fit properly. In the end he survived and the machine paintball gun created a pretty cool scene.

I think the live show was great for big fans of the Discovery Channel hit, but for the casual viewer I am not sure the 1 hour and 45 minutes was captivating.