Artist: Vai, Steve
Label: Favored Nations
Release: 2009
Rating: 3.5/5
Steve Vai is leaving the European philharmonic halls that defined the DVD Visual Sound theories behind and heading back to rock stages. For this one he picked the State theatre in Minneapolis, one of the stops on the tour where he recharged his batteries after a year and a half of polishing material in the studio for his album with a classical orchestra (Rockline review HERE). Apparently it was the violins that thrilled him most, because this time he brought not one but two classically trained violinists into his band: Alex de Pue and Anne Marie Calhoun, who had just come back from a tour with Jethro tull. The result is a pretty distinctive and rather demanding musical atmosphere that probably won’t sit well with all of his fans. Even though they (we) are used to all kinds of experimenting (where, let’s be honest, Vai often leaned way too hard on the innovative tricks of the legendary Zappa), this time the virtuoso outdid both his mentor and himself and lost sight of the basic point of music: producing sound waves that pleasantly shake the eardrum and, in the brain, where the ossicles carry them as nerve impulses, creating feelings of ease. You could level similar charges at quite a few artists at home and abroad, but for entirely different reasons.
Of course, even people who don’t know his work couldn’t say that the music Vai serves up on the new CD and double DVD is annoying or unlistenable. Far from it. It’s just so unusual and bizarre that it’s hard to absorb without total concentration. Having already done everything there is to do in his career, the maestro opted for the strict path of experimentation, held back at times only by a few predictable technical patterns that made Vai famous in the eighties. In these escapades his guitar is joined this time by the aforementioned violins, which, despite the surgical precision with which they shadow the master’s lightning-fast lines, seem completely superfluous. A fine example of this mess are the first three tracks, whose only bright spot is the translucent fluorescent Ibanez 20th Aniversary Jem, which owners of the CD version sadly won’t get to admire. Although Vai and both violinists spent a lot of time adapting this classical instrument to the guitar sound, in both dynamics and mechanics, they only partly pulled it off. Mainly because of the end result. He did create something new and daring, and once again wrote himself into the very top tier of rock avant-garde, but, as said, he picked an instrumentation whose mix doesn’t make for the most successful sonic picture.
So Paint me your face, Now we run and Oooo rush past us with their unconventional beats without any particular effect. The real music only kicks in with Tender Surrender, but Vai soon spoils it with his singing on Fire wall. It isn’t bad, and next to someone like Plestenjak it’s even above average, but Vai just isn’t Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan, who besides their obvious guitar chops were also acclaimed vocalists. The band Vai put together this time doesn’t feature big names either, unlike, say, the one on the DVD Live at the Astoria, where we got to enjoy the mastery of Billy Sheehan and Tony MacAlpine. The only member of that 2001 crew Steve invited along to Minneapolis is the modest Dave Weiner, who doesn’t deliver anything outstanding in his solo spots either.
Of course, the Where the wild things are concert has its bright spots too. Most of them are on the second disc, where we find some classics like The audience is listening, Liberty and Answers, with the highlights of the show being the soulful Whispering a prayer and For the love of God. That composition, today a trademark of Vai’s repertoire, is also the only track where Anne Marie Calhoun’s violin really comes alive and hits the nail on the head. Unlike the rest of the material, For the love of God feels like it was written for the violin, since its soft, refined lines fit the capabilities of the instrument perfectly. The concert also boasts a heaping dose of theatrics, as served up by The murder and Vai’s skits and speeches, but, as said, only buyers of the DVD version will get to enjoy that.
The bonus material is plenty of fun too. There you can browse interviews with every member of the band and find out how the tour preparations went, and the presentation of Steve’s new stomp box, the Jemini distortion, is hilarious. In this segment Vai, in a joking dialogue with himself, walks us through the sonic capabilities of the little box, which he designed together with the Ibanez engineers and which can (for a fairly steep price) be bought here in Slovenia too. You’ll recognize it by the distinctive swirl color pattern that adorns his seven-string Jem UV77 from the cover of Passion and warfare.
Where the wild things are is thus a kind of experimental detour and could be called Vai’s Trout mask replica (Captain Beefheart) or Ummagumma (Pink floyd). It’s above all a curiosity or, if we’re feeling bolder, an anomaly on the great guitarist’s already unusual musical journey. While he was never known for conventional approaches in his work, he has always found fitting solutions that worked, or at least passed, in the context of his poetics. Wild things is right on the edge of that acceptability, and we can hope Vai won’t use it as a jumping-off point into a plunge of headlong testing of every possible sonic option and dimension, but will return to the paths of music that, for all its unconventionality, can still be pleasant to the ear. As Mozart once said: “Music is melody and melody is music.”
Line-up
Steve Vai – guitar, vocals
Alex dePue – violin, keyboards
Anne Marie Calhoun – violin, keyboards
Brian Beller – bass
Jeremy Colson – drums
Dave Weiner – guitar
Production
Steve Vai
Track list
Disc 1
1. Paint me your face
2. Now we run
3. Oooo
4. Buliding the church
5. Tender surrender
6. Band intros
7. Fire wall
8. The crying machine
9. Shove the sun aside
10. I’m becoming
11. Die to live
12. Freak show excess
13. Apples in paradise
14. All about eve
15. Gary 7
16. Beastly rap
17. Treasure island
18. Angel food
19. Earthquake sky
Disc 2
20. The audience is listening
21. The murder
22. Juice
23. Whispering a prayer
24. Taurus Bulba
25. Liberty
26. Answers
27. For the love of God
