Yngwie Malmsteen
Thursday, 4 June 2026, 9:00 PM – 10:45 PM
Zagreb // Tvornica kulture // Croatia
Yngwie Malmsteen today stands among the all-time greats of the six-string electric wonder — the guitar. In the eighties he was in the right place at the right time, boldly fusing neoclassical works with metal riffs and in doing so carving out a unique spot on the global metal and hard rock scene! He commands the loyalty of rockers and metalheads alike. Having merged baroque and rock ‘n’ roll into a musical language entirely his own, his persona and presence remain just as relevant today among guitar-hungry enthusiasts. Yngwie stays a burning name — generations of musicians dream of being able to tear up the fretboard the way he does.
His persona and stage presence are extraordinary. Especially on stage! He’s a sort of dark baroque glam metalhead who, in terms of speed and technical mastery, has taken the legacy of Richie Blackmore — his main idol — to a whole other level. Ferrari’s rearing ‘cavallino’ faithfully adorns the bodies of his cream-colored Fender Stratocaster guitars at his 2026 concerts too. Sharply dressed, tall, and we can say (once again) lean, the Swedish guitar virtuoso maintains that winning combination of dark (tight-fitting) leather, boots, and deep purple (baroque-ruffled) shirts. Hands full of rings and a row of jangling bracelets, the obligatory trusty Rolex (strapped to the right wrist) — and even at 63, he still sports a long, outrageously lush mane of hair!
Let’s rewind to the very beginning. It’s just past eight in the evening, and in front of Tvornica kulture it’s a sea of black. Fans of all generations. Interestingly, when you go to an Yngwie concert, figuring out which T-shirt to wear becomes a genuine puzzle. That alone speaks to the artistic singularity of this guitar virtuoso. At events like this, you see people wearing T-shirts from every genre of rock and metal imaginable. Incredible. Brilliant. By nine o’clock, Tvornica is absolutely packed. People crammed in like matches. Pressed together. Waiting, on edge, ready for the volcanic eruption of baroque and roll. ‘Insider’ intel is always worth its weight in gold: Yngwie had apparently already fried one of his Marshall amps at soundcheck.
A few minutes past nine, keyboardist Nick Marino (born Željko Marinović), bassist Emilio Martinez, and drummer Kevin Klingenschmid take the stage. Tucked over to the left side (as seen from the crowd). It wouldn’t surprise anyone if Malmsteen had actually chalked lines on the stage marking how far bassist Martinez is allowed to move — that’s something Malmsteen’s idol Richie Blackmore famously loved to do in his day. From the other side, a familiar figure slides out from behind the wall of Marshalls onto the stage. Yngwie. He’d been teasing the crowd with salvos of arpeggios backstage even before the show officially started. And here he is. The crowd goes wild. His debut in Zagreb and in Croatia (he played Slovenia back in 2005 at the Metal Camp festival).
On stage, Yngwie quickly transforms into an elusive guitar imp, a mischievous little devil who makes no secret of the sheer joy he takes in everything he does! He maintains an extraordinary passion for everything he takes on. Alongside his incredible charisma, there’s a whole bag of entertaining tricks — especially playing the guitar in his trademark poses, pulling faces, and that infectiously natural communication with the crowd, where throwing picks also plays a major role. Yngwie rattles off an arpeggio — whoosh, a pick flies, then another arpeggio and a new one’s already airborne. Picks are flying everywhere. During a keyboard-guitar duel he even chucked one straight at Nick Marino (his keyboardist). Bottom line, the guy throws a ton of picks — many end up on the stage, but a good number he boots goalkeeper-style into the crowd. Perhaps the only one who out-showers him in this kind of souvenir-flinging is Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), who tosses into the crowd, among other things, ‘floating paper origamis’ with picks stuck on them (something we experienced firsthand in July 2004 in Izola — RockLine review).
For quite a while until a couple of years ago, Yngwie had been largely absent from our part of the world. At the end of June 2024 he finally played the castle park in Udine, where he put on a jaw-dropping show (same backing band) — RockLine review. And when a Zagreb show gets confirmed, you simply have to go. In Udine there were seats. It was a big open-air venue — but hardly anyone actually sat down. More accurately, nobody sat down. Tvornica kulture is a different story entirely. It’s a club venue, and that makes for a completely different experience. It brings the crowd that much closer to the artist. Yngwie was radiating a fantastic mood. He twirled the guitar around his waist, around his neck — at one point he threw it over his shoulder to his tech (who caught it, or he’d have been out of a job), played the strings with his tongue, behind his back… With his beloved guitars, though, he behaves like a bull in a china shop. He grinds them against the amps (and where did he first see that done? Blackmore — again!), rips strings off them (in Vienna back in 2003 he stripped every string off one of his Fenders). And he blew everyone away. Not just with the theatrics, but with the perfection. The sound was excellent. Warm, organic, full. Yngwie’s fine mechanics remain in a category all their own. Blistering speed and precision that defies description. That inexhaustible rondo of cascading notes — an entire ocean of them — lit up in all its glory! The man kept three tracks from the current album “Parabellum” in the setlist, but what really got the crowd going were the career classics — right from the start with the Rising Force classic from the fourth album “Odyssey”! This time around, the one “Marching Out” classic he saved for the very end was I’ll See The Light Tonight. The integration of “Trilogy” tracks was a highlight (Trilogy Suite Op. 5, and near the end You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget). Of course the debut “Rising Force” wasn’t missing either (Now Your Ships Are Burned, Evil Eye). For the title track of “Fire & Ice”, Marino took over on vocals. Yngwie handled some vocal duties himself too (Smoke On The Water, Red House), but thankfully left the key vocal moments to Marino, who delivered very solidly on that front. A particular joy are his adaptations of classical works by Bach and Paganini. I could happily listen for two hours or more to Yngwie grinding out adaptations of the great classical composers. Breathtaking! Near the end he also picked up his Ovation YM68 and went off acoustically.
An hour and three-quarters gone, and it felt like nothing. That’s how fast everything flies by at an Yngwie concert. If this show somehow slipped past you — or worse, if you skipped it on purpose — you’ve got a chance to make amends and repent for your sin. Yngwie will also be playing in Pordenone, Italy on 26 July 2026, which is roughly the same distance from Ljubljana as Zagreb. The Zagreb concert belongs among those truly special experiences. It shot me back to my first encounter with the legendary guitarist at Vienna’s Planet Music, which was demolished in 2008 when they built apartment blocks on the site. The energy was extraordinary. That real, top-tier club energy — it doesn’t get better than that. The crowd did their part. A supremely fired-up Yngwie delivered every bit of his brilliance and, as said, absolutely blew us away. A concert that leaves you speechless. And you’re still coming back to yourself long after it’s over. That was the real, genuine eruption of baroque and roll that defines this one-of-a-kind musician — one that only happens when the magnificent maestro Yngwie takes the stage. A new, unforgettable experience, no less!
p.s.: The one thing that might hint at Yngwie being slightly out of touch with reality is the price of his merch. A signed record, for example, would set you back €220. Priceless. Literally.
Text: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik & Edita Klemen (last four photos in the gallery)
Yngwie Malmsteen – setlist:
1. Rising Force
2. Top Down, Foot Down
3. Soldier
4. Into Valhalla / Baroque & Roll
5. Relentless Fury
6. Like an Angel (For April)
7. Now Your Ships Are Burned
8. Wolves At The Door
9. (Si Vis Pacem) Parabellum
10. Paganini’s 4th / Adagio (orig. Niccolò Paganini)
11. Far Beyond The Sun / Bohemian Rhapsody (orig. Queen)
12. Seventh Sign
13. Toccata
14. Fire & Ice
15. Evil Eye
16. Smoke On The Water (orig. Deep Purple)
17. Trilogy Suite Op: 5 / Vengeance
18. Guitar solo / From a Thousand Cuts
19. Overture
20. Blue
21. Red House (orig. Jimi Hendrix Experience)
22. Badinerie (orig. Johann Sebastian Bach) / Guitar solo
23. Drum solo
24. You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget
25. Acoustic guitar solo / Black Star
26. I’ll See The Light Tonight
