Yngwie Malmsteen
Tuesday, 25 June 2024, 9:30 PM – 11:30 PM
Udine / Castello Di Udine / Italy
Yngwie Malmsteen occupies a singular position in the heavy metal and hard rock universe. After all the years he’s stacked onto his career, he needs no lengthy introduction. Between 1984 and 2021 he released 22 studio albums, and already with his debut “Rising Force” this sensational musician became one of the chief ‘culprits’ who — by launching a solo career in the mid-eighties — further changed the world of guitar playing. The fusion of metal with classical music is his ABC, his artistic runway that launched him onto the throne as one of the greatest inspirations for generations of musicians who followed his breakneck speeds — most of the time at dimensions nobody else could touch. Baroque and roll! In one piece. It doesn’t get more authentic than that. He was simply the first. The first one who pulled it off.
Yngwie’s European shows have become genuinely scarce in recent years. Especially when it comes to visits to our region. When the concert was confirmed, it automatically triggered some subconscious urge — you simply had to be there. Especially if you worship distortion brewed to the recipe of Bach & Paganini. On the very day all of Slovenia was teaching the English how football is played, Yngwie took the stage in front of Udine’s castle. Simultaneously!
Somewhere around half past nine in the evening, a large white Audi Q-series appears from the left. It swings sharply around a corner and parks right next to the entrance leading toward the stage (stage left — looking toward the castle facade). The Maestro has arrived. Less than two minutes later, the three legionaries of his current touring band take the stage: keyboardist Nick Marin (born Željko Marinović), bassist Emilio Martinez, and drummer Kevin Klingenschmid. A moment later, the one and only sweeps in alongside the towering wall of Marshall cabs. Yngwie. As if time had stopped. What you see is what you get. Same outfit. The imposing Swede, standing somewhere close to two meters tall, remains as bejeweled and jangling as ever — still wearing that dark silken shirt with baroque ruffled sleeves, tight leather trousers, sharply pointed boots. The watch isn’t missing either (strapped to the right wrist, like a sweet reminder of a distant past before the ‘digital delusions’). A true knight, a warrior who travels unflinchingly through time and never wavers from his principles and convictions. His very entrance alone — in the eyes of the mostly ‘badly dressed’ millennials who settle for Harlem tracksuits and caps, largely ‘lost in an ocean of semitone chugging and palm-muted crunches’ — made it clear what real metal once was and who is the supreme sorcerer of the dark halls and expanses of baroque glam metal! Time had stopped. For two hours, at least.
The opening sequence launched the crowd straight into the air. The classic Rising Force, followed by I’ll See The Light, Tonight from the early days. Everyone was at the barrier immediately. Seats forgotten. For the next two hours. You could feel the euphoria, and in some sense also the realization that Yngwie had been genuinely missed on the stages of the old continent. The man remains a benchmark in everything he does. He holds up brilliantly — stage agility, energy, theatrics, all of it. And through it all, his precision micro-mechanics carry every last ounce of dynamite and charge that made him famous from the very start in the eighties. Even in 2024.
Yngwie came out swinging that evening with everything he had. He was enjoying himself — you could feel it. He was in a fantastic mood and put on an unforgettable experience that clocked in at a blistering full two hours. The machine-gunner of relentless arpeggio madness shows no sign of cooling his passions. Which made this show hit even harder. He kept up a genuine shower of picks for the entire two hours (clearly, when the weather forecast called for rain, the meteorologists had Yngwie’s hail of white Dunlop picks in mind — the exact same ones his compatriot John Norum of Europe uses). Yngwie doesn’t say much at his gigs. He communicates with picks. Hurling them into the crowd with theatrical goalkeeper-style launches is basically a conditioned reflex. The Ferrari stickers remain firmly on the Stratocaster, and Malmsteen continues to be a masterful catcher of guitars whenever he sends them several meters straight up into the air or spins them relentlessly around his waist.
Alongside showcasing his latest album “Parabellum” (2021), Yngwie made the most of the available time to journey through the carousel of his solo career, naturally taking in the milestones that crowned him king of neoclassical metal. From the debut “Rising Force” (Now Your Ships Are Burned, Evil Eye, the closing Black Star), to the legendary classic “Trilogy” (delivering a section of Vengeance) and the title track from “The Seventh Sun”, all the way to an abbreviated Heaven Tonight from “Odyssey” — with which he stormed back onstage for the second encore! He gave the crowd no room to breathe. Not even in the lighter stretches of the show, when he tackled the Purple standard Smoke On The Water and the beloved, crowd-adopted Hendrix Red House, both fixtures of his concerts. His raging voyage across the towering, turbulently foaming waves of those oceans of musical notation had no end in sight!
For the big finale, the legendary guitarist returns to the stage — this time with his famous white semi-acoustic ‘Ovation Viper’, which he uses throughout. In five minutes of picking magic you could convince yourself all over again just how effortlessly Yngwie’s fingers fly — naturally, he wove in a bit of Bach (part of the famous Overture No. 3 in D major — ‘Air’). Once the crowd, packed and pressed up against the stage, had one final time worked itself into a full boil, he set them ablaze one last time! With the classics Black Star and, for the second encore, Heaven Tonight (in an abbreviated version). In all their unbridled splendor! As befits baroque soaked in metal!
So? Yes. In every regard, Malmsteen remains astonishing. Immovable. One of a kind. Breathtaking. Even when you set aside the ‘shaky’ vocals — both his and his colleague Marin’s. For the concert to be truly flawless, Malmsteen would need a proper vocalist. But when you factor in all the touring costs, fees, and so on… you just have to bite your tongue and embrace ‘modesty’. Times for rock and metal are nowhere near what they were fifteen years ago, when someone like Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens could be dashing around the stage alongside Malmsteen. That’s the only gripe — from a ‘purist’ standpoint, but as said. Malmsteen, with all his commanding charisma and the unrivaled craft of a singular guitar acrobat, ‘covers’ and delivers everything from the stage. Still!
Authors: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Rising Force
2. I’ll See The Light, Tonight
3. Top Down, Foot Down / No Rest for the Wicked
4. Soldier
5. Into Valhalla / Baroque & Roll
6. Like an Angel (For April)
7. Relentless Fury
8. Now Your Ships Are Burned
9. Wolves at the Door
10. (Si Vis Pacem) Parabellum
11. As Above, So Below
12. Badinerie (orig. Johann Sebastian Bach)
13. Paganini’s 4th / Adagio (orig. Niccolò Paganini)
14. Far Beyond the Sun
15. Seventh Sign
16. Toccata
17. Evil Eye
18. Smoke on the Water (orig. Deep Purple)
19. Trilogy (Vengeance)
20. Guitar Solo
21. Red House (orig. Jimi Hendrix Experience)
22. Fugue
23. Drum Solo
24. You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget
—encore I.—
25. Black Star
—encore II.—
26. Heaven Tonight
