Location: Udine / Castello Di Udine / Italy
Date: Friday, July 1, 2022
Steve Vai! What else is there left to say about this guitar deity? Steve Vai is one of those phenomena of a truly brilliant musician. He’s an absolute one-of-a-kind when it comes to perceiving the musical universe and translating it from mind to fingertips. Steve Vai is a legend in his own right and stands at the very top of the world’s guitarists when it comes to innovation in guitar playing, and earlier this year he released a gorgeous — outright excellent, in fact — studio album, »Inviolate« (2022, RockLine review). The album went through a serious phase of evolution, and Vai was already turning heads deep into last year, appearing with a brace on his right hand when he premiered the first new single, Knappstack, which he recorded and played with just one hand. The hand he had left. His left. For Vai, that’s a minor inconvenience.
In the meantime, leading up to the new album’s release, plenty of buzz was generated by a new guitar — or rather, instrument. Yet another jaw-dropping invention that gives you goosebumps just looking at it, leaving you completely baffled as to how anyone could even play the thing. Named the Hydra. Steve knows everything. It’s all perfectly clear to him. He simply told the guys at Ibanez Japan that he wanted a guitar that was anything but conventional. The Japanese obliged Vai’s ‘modest’ request in every way. Eager to satisfy Steve Vai’s inexhaustible imagination, they took this monstrous creation packed with intricate details — already sporting two guitar necks — and added a third, fretless one.
Sadly, though, the Hydra didn’t make an appearance that evening at the Udine castle. The turnout was great — a good 1,500 people. A return, then, to the very venue where Steve Vai performed on July 7, 2016, playing his most celebrated album »Passion And Warfare« in its entirety. And here we are again. The exact same venue, almost exactly six years later. Time flies. Relentlessly and silently. It’s nine-thirty in the evening and the iconic guitarist is already on stage, backed by a dazzling interplay of spotlight beams and a massive backdrop screen. To his right, Dave Weiner once again; to his left, the brilliant bassist Philip Bynoe; and behind him, none other than the endlessly energetic drummer Jeremy Colson. Why beat around the bush? The lineup was identical to six years ago.
Steve Vai came out swinging straight from the new album »Inviolate«, opening with the playful yet more musical Avalancha and its unmistakable guitar phrase — clearly intent on getting the crowd on their feet from the very first moment. He didn’t have to bat a single eyelash to pull it off. In Italy, his legendary showmanship and boundless theatrics have long since been granted full citizenship. The crowd erupted in thunderous opening applause.
The iconic guitarist, who turned 62 just a month ago, remains endlessly playful, mischievous, and effervescent, bursting with an insatiable urge for on-stage theatrics while delivering his material with sheer joy and pleasure. Vai had largely shaped the setlist around the new album, but he made sure to sneak in a few surprising additions. He brought back, for instance, Giant Balls Of Fire, which featured on his (double) live album »Alive In An Ultra World« (2001) — anyone who knows that album knows it includes a version performed at Vai’s legendary concert at Hala Tivoli in Ljubljana, where he played on April 12, 2000. Ahhh, the nostalgia. Dyin’ Day also came as quite a surprise. It’s a track from the excellent »Fire Garden« (1996), an album from which you rarely hear anything at a Vai concert beyond one of the parts of the title suite. Well, Dyin’ Day was a track Vai and his band had never actually performed live until this very tour. The charming Little Pretty, played early in the set — with Weiner picking up an electric sitar and Vai a semi-acoustic guitar — confirmed that in this more mature creative phase, Vai has been reaching more and more for organic sonic elements.
Nicely balanced concert material. There’s the »Alien Love Secret« classic Tender Surrender, after which the quartet let rip full-throttle into the (heavily improvised, extremely) jagged and fragmented Lights Are On — a sign of how maturely Vai is now flirting with the characteristics of jazz-rock fusion. Wrapped in a brilliance of free-flowing kinetics and charged with the organic groove warmth of the exceptional Bynoe, Vai can afford to be completely carefree. Nothing slips past this alert bassist. It was in this track that Bynoe got his moment in the spotlight — stepping to the front, delivering his solo spot, and showcasing his mastery. A chapter all its own at any Vai concert is always the incisive Bad Horsie, with its blisteringly thundering guitar riff — the same track Vai opened with at this very venue six years ago, and the one where you always wait for his comedic guitar imitation of a horse’s neigh. Vai went more ‘band-oriented’ for the phenomenally laid-back new Greenish Blues, where he showed what a deep understanding of the blues looks like — or rather, its strict transformation through the ‘VAI-ology’ playbook. The always delicate and all-but-mandatory Whispering A Prayer was also in the set, where in the finale of his chosen improvisations, Vai once again stunned through sophisticated sound bending, leaning generously on the help of a microphone. Hearing Vai’s songs live is always a different experience, regardless of whether you’ve caught a particular track live before. It goes without saying that Vai’s compositions don’t hide his years studying under Frank Zappa — only that the influence of Vai’s late mentor manifests in his interpretations in a distinctly Vai-like way.
Vai’s theatrical on-stage uniqueness would never shine in all its glory without all the extra things this guitar messiah gets up to while playing. This is made possible, alongside his singular musical philosophy, by the sheer physical makeup of this lanky figure with his extraordinarily long fingers — and in that regard, the only other guitar hero who comes remotely close in association is probably Paul Gilbert (though he does things entirely his own way). Vai injects the performance with a load of buffoonery that is simply extraordinary to witness. It’s the effect of unexpected moves that stun. That shock. This accompanies practically every single note he plays — whether through his trademark grimaces that plunge him even deeper into the realm of brilliantly entertaining comedy. He keeps the audience hooked even in moments that are particularly demanding from a musical-compositional complexity standpoint. Vai is a first-rate hypnotist for his audience. There’s no one like him in that regard. Part of the entertainment is the most bizarre body positions he gets into, which seem to make normal guitar playing virtually impossible. Well, Vai genuinely isn’t normal in some way. Let’s put it more charitably — he isn’t ordinary. Which is why he can pull off practically anything on the guitar. Even the ‘extraordinary’. And he has an absolute blast doing it. Just like his audience, swept up in their own sweet, stunned delight right there alongside him.
A highlight all its own was, once again, the performance of the »Passion And Warfare« (1990) classic For the Love Of God. To kick it off, Vai called Danni G to the stage — a member of his technical crew — who sang the song’s lead motif in an operatic fashion. With a little less theatrics, Dante Frisiello (Weiner’s guitar tech) took up position on the far left for this one, while Weiner shifted to the keyboards. The concert evening is also etched in memory for one more thing. When the quartet came back for the obligatory encore, tackling one of the parts of Firegarden Suite, Vai’s equipment decided to call it a night on him. The guitar suddenly went silent, and Vai lamented: »I’m not working!« In a flash, Vai’s longtime guitar tech Thomas Nordegg came rushing out from the wings. Vai didn’t make a huge drama out of it, though it was immediately clear he was not even remotely pleased. It’s not the first time for him, and it won’t be the last. While Colson, Bynoe, and Weiner held down the repeating rhythm and motif, Vai grabbed the microphone and started vocally improvising — simultaneously making up all sorts of stories and delivering them through the vocal melody. Theatrics were never in short supply, not even in those moments. Among other things, in the style of: »My father use to say ‘porka miseria’….« And so on. »Am I working?« Vai wandered back and forth across the stage, asking his tech what was going on with his instrument, like a little kid whose favorite toy had been taken away. To the wild delight of all of us, the sound roared back through the speakers, and the band was finally able to drive their two-hour-plus concert spectacular to its conclusion.
You don’t know what else to add when you’ve probably already said too much. Steve Vai remains a stunning and utterly one-of-a-kind guitar ace. Not just a guitar ace — a musical ace — and his concerts are an absolute treat for everyone. For those who come purely for a good time, as well as for those who spend the whole show obsessively watching every move of this elusive guitarist’s fingers. The only thing that slightly soured the whole experience at the end was a run-in with the official merch prices, where a signed red vinyl was going for €100.00, a standard black vinyl cost a (still astronomical) €45.00, and an unsigned red went for €70.00. And one small footnote: at Müller on Čopova Street in Ljubljana, you can pick up the black (180-gram) — i.e., the identical — single vinyl for €19.99. »Not in this lifetime, dear Steve.« It’s not that we can’t afford it — we simply refuse to pay it, because we’re not that stupid.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik & Edita Klemen (nos. 41 and 42)
Steve Vai setlist:
1. Avalancha
2. Giant Balls of Gold
3. Little Pretty
4. Tender Surrender
5. Lights Are On (plus bass guitar solo)
6. Candlepower
7. guitar solo (Dave Weiner)
8. Building the Church
9. Greenish Blues
10. Bad Horsie
11. I’m Becoming
12. Whispering a Prayer
13. Dyin’ Day
14. drum solo
15. Zeus in Chains
16. Liberty
17. For the Love of God
—encore—
18. Fire Garden Suite IV – Taurus Bulba
