Vai’s “Little” Guitar Workout in Zagreb (2012)

Seven years go by and Steve Vai shows up in Europe again. On a new tour! The new album »The Story Of Light«, a fine, top-quality new studio document, is served up by this musician’s inexhaustible, brilliant mind. Seven years ago, in the last ten days of September 2005, Steve Vai stood on Slovenian stages for the third time in his career, playing his spectacular show at Cvetličarna in Ljubljana, and a month and a half later, on 13.11.2005 to be exact, he stopped at Tvornica Kulture in Zagreb with an even better show than the Ljubljana one. Well, the story repeats itself seven years on! Except the gap between the Ljubljana and Zagreb shows is only 4 days, and this time Zagreb came first, so Vai leaves himself the door wide open to upgrade his Zagreb spectacle in Ljubljana and deliver Slovenians an even better show. Whatever. An inner restlessness, stirred by endless curiosity and devotion to the magic of music in all its forms, shot the RockLine crew exclusively to Zagreb, to hand you a report on this out-of-the-ordinary artist’s form even before Vai’s Ljubljana show.   

Unlike the previous tour, this new one is set up more »lean and mean«. Last time Steve Vai took delta blues derailer Eric Sardinas as the opening act; this time he brought along singer-songwriter Beverly McClellan, almost unknown in our neck of the woods, who had to drop out of the world tour with Vai midway for family reasons. Steve Vai also disbanded his backing group The Breed, which, besides Dave Wiener and Jeremy Colson, included his Devil’s Slingshot buddies Tony MacAlpine and Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big). To replace those two, he called up a pair of lesser-known but no less eye-catching names: bassist Philip Bynoe and harpist Deborah Henson-Conant!

It’s nine in the evening, Tvornica Kulture has filled up nicely, though tickets didn’t sell out like they did at the same venue seven years ago. The tension was building, and the heavy minutes, dragging on like a nuclear age, were eased by music from Devin Townsend – Vai’s friend, who laid down the vocals for Vai’s album »Sex And Religion« (1993). First to appear on stage with her electric harp is the extravagant Deborah. The effect was like someone had hauled a Christmas tree onto the stage, since the body (its »vault«) of the harp was decked out with a whole constellation of little lights, delivering the expected »glam allure« of the Steve Vai story. Vai’s superior little pupil Dave Wiener was of course there too, though somewhat nastier music teachers, who were tagging along to the show this time, could easily have missed him.  With his gigantic six-string bass »oar« Philip Bynoe also joined the lineup – at first glance you’d almost mistake him for T.M. Stevens – while in the back, behind the drum fortress, sat the savage drummer Jeremy Colson, tattooed down to the last square centimeter of skin. We last saw him in Slovenia on 24.06.2010, as Billy Idol’s drummer at his show at Hala Tivoli. This time the view of Jeremy was extremely thankless, because Steve Vai had lined up his main stage amps – the whole basic rig – in a row right in front of Jeremy’s drums, so the audience was denied a view of the setup itself and of the kit Colson was pounding.

Never mind. Up front there’s room for only one man. The devilish guitar doctor who can only be Steve Vai. The man put on some kind of Mexican hat, strutted onto the stage like a Latin ladies’ man, the long hair is a thing of the past for him, but he didn’t forget the glamorous shades. The monumental exposé of all-out guitar excess materialized instantly. As expected, the man struck first with new material from the album »The Story Of Light«, namely two typical »Vai cavalry charges« of full-blooded rally driving (Racing The World, Velorum), which immediately conjure up that unique shock theatricality of the »Vai figures«!

The man’s communication with the audience is of course first and foremost the language of the guitar (hm,… really big news!!!), but Vai works with his whole body and mind, and you could say, in his philosophy, soul too. Every note is accompanied by a bodily response, and Vai delivers his performance to the crowd with a series of facial grimaces, trying to underline the emotional sensitivity of whatever mood he happens to be in. Soon a girl in the front row sends him a kiss, which Vai theatrically catches in the air and presses to his face with his palm. Ah, that old »pervert« greased with every trick in the book. Vai is a master of glam excess and in situations like this he knows how to work a crowd in a contagious, under-the-skin cheeky way that doesn’t just enchant you but literally steals your heart. No wonder he played in David Lee Roth’s band and in Whitesnake. Guitar behind his back, next moment somewhere high in the air, then he locks up his right hand and the left does all the work, as the guitar’s magnets squeeze a sharp melody of improvised licks out of his grips. No problem for Vai. He doesn’t miss – no matter how unimaginable the stage pose and body position. Switching hands, left over right and vice versa, is second nature for him. He theatrically chases the mic feedback around the stage and turns it into melody in his solo escapades. And everyone is waiting for the moment when Vai, for the big finale, puts his tongue on the strings too – which always happens at the end of his shows. An incredible freak-out of pure experimental culture. Most of the biggest guitar-madness freak-outs, though, Vai creates with the tremolo arm. He has taken it, in technique and playing, to such an extreme level that it gives him an even wider range of notes than the basic, »pinned« ones fixed in the positions on the guitar neck can ever allow. And of course what adds fuel to the fire in this boundless shock-and-show theater is Vai’s extraordinary speed, precision and absolute control of every movement. Vai is Vai. A fully formed one-of-a-kind musical guru, who wrapped Tvornica that evening in an unforgettable voyage. Just as he announced in the first break, inviting us into his unique world. 

In the opening stretch the excellent Tender Surrender from the album »Alien Love Secrets« (1995) is a surprise, and Steve Vai goes looking for his first change of clothes in his wardrobe during Dave Wiener’s solo spot, in which Dave spoiled the crowd for a few minutes with an acoustic guitar. Steve Vai, finally rid of the hat and in a fresh silk shirt, announces a new song, and the band spins into Wheeping China Doll, followed by yet another brand-new one  – the gorgeous The Moon And I. The crowd jumps to its feet for a wild version of The Animal from »Passion And Warfare«, during which the emotions of everyone in the hall came alive especially intensely. The »Passion And Wafare« numbers are the ones everybody waits for with particular impatience at Vai shows, and as a rule Vai plays them even faster than the studio versions you know. Vai changed outfits on stage a few more times, and the one that kicked up the most dust of all was his »laser lights« getup in the »The Ultra Zone« numbers, namely the title track, followed by Frank.

Another killer moment of the show was the solo on the electric harp, which served as a kind of intro to the acoustic set – Vai kicked that off with the only vocal number of the night, Rescue Me Or Bury Me (»Sex And Religion«, 1993). This part of the show again felt hypnotic. The harp especially came into much more expression in the sound picture, because during the electric numbers it was mostly drowned out by Wiener’s wall of riffing guitars. It was in the acoustic set that the harp’s expressive value came into the worth that Steve Vai himself felt when he decided to fully equip his songs with arrangements for electric harp. Deborah on stage with her harp actually evoked a kind of distant substitute for the show excesses from the previous tour, when the »brilliant nonsense« that Vai, Billy Sheehan and Tony MacAlpine pulled off side by side during the shows, as if on an assembly line, seemed to have no end. Wiener navigated the stage deftly among many kinds of guitars, even an electric sitar, and also helped out a few times on keyboards, maintaining the mood backdrops for individual songs.

Before the stormy finish, the band took time for a special spot of the evening. Vai called up two volunteers from the audience, who, after Vai’s vivid »fatherly introduction«, each rattled off a random rhythm or melody motif out of their heads for every band member. All this theater, to a degree stage chaos, the band under Steve Vai’s conducting baton then instantly composed and arranged into a completely new song. At that point everyone in the hall could get right up close to what it’s like when Vai and company are in the studio or at rehearsal. Insane experience!

One more thing! Treasure Island is another of the evening’s special moments. It’s a skit between Jeremy Colson and Steve Vai, sort of inherited from the skits Vai’s great mentor Frank Zappa once staged with his drummer Terry Bozzio (listen to the double live album »Zappa in New York«). Besides all the ultra freak-outs that Vai’s elemental and unique stage show brings, this is yet another extra spice of the spectacle that makes it absolutely worth catching his show!

Vai put a spell on Zagreb. That’s indisputable. This one-of-a-kind musical epic lasted almost two hours and three quarters, rounded off by the long-awaited compositional perfection of For The Love Of God and carried to a superb close by the »Fire Garden Suite« standard Taurus Bulba.  Judging by what he showed, Vai remains a born stage entertainer, a great wizard and master of shock/show excess, which he seasons with the elusive playing of a unique six-string, even seven-string, theory! Let that be enough, so I save a few more words for the report from Ljubljana, where Steve Vai strikes on 13.11.2012!