Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force, or the Story of Trying on Blackmore’s (Big!) Shoes (2003)

Location: Vienna (Wien) / Planet Music / Austria
Date: 22.03.2003

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The old town of our visits, on the perfect day, a Saturday! Late in the afternoon we were the first to burst into the Planet Music foyer. Dead silence. Everything was neatly tidied up, the flyers were carefully stacked and announced a stormy spring, especially when it comes to visits from old rock and blues legends (Big Brother And Holding Company, The Yarbirds, Paul McCartney, John Mayal).

Escorted by a Planet Music hostess, Dougie White (ex-Rainbow) scurried right past us. Malmsteen’s singer waved and promised he’d be over in a sec. Of course the talk immediately turned to Ritchie Blackmore and how Dougie sees him and the whole situation swirling (or that used to swirl) around Rainbow. Obviously pleasantly surprised by three maniacs who care more about the roots than modern trends, he gave away the secret of what Yngwie was up to right then: “Watching CNN!” Then, in the café inside Planet Music, he just grabbed the stuff we had for signing and kindly offered to go to the maestro for the autographs. Yngwie is known for being unapproachable and for his hot-tempered outbursts (one of those tantrums, which his wife supposedly egged him into (naturally, women, who else), landed him behind bars after he chased her around their Los Angeles apartment with a kitchen knife). Blackmore’s ghost has moved into him, and Yngwie is literally obsessed with Blackmore (more on that later), who has almost identical character traits. Meanwhile bassist Mick Cervino (ex-Blasckmore’s Night) turned up from somewhere and the talk about Ritchie was on again. Cervino openly admitted the tour with Malmsteen is going fantastically, unlike his old time with Blackmore’s Night, when Ritchie once walked up to Mick mid-show, drew a line on the stage and decided where Cervino was even allowed to move. Yngwie is a whole different song — he gives you total freedom on stage.

Dougie brought back our loot (the autographs): “Master sends me!” he said curtly as he handed over Yngwie’s signatures. He added: “Soundcheck, pay attention, we’ll be playing mostly Deep Purple and Hendrix!”

By then the CNN reports were apparently over, and a nearly two-meter-tall dude showed up in a fur coat and a crimson silk shirt, jangling with chains all over. Yngwie, already dressed in his stage gear, headed off to the soundcheck while Dougie was still hopping around in a tracksuit.

And sure enough, the band burned through Hendrix (Purple Haze, Voodoo Chile), Black Sabbath (Heaven And Hell, Children Of The Sea) and Deep Purple (You Fool No One) during the soundcheck. Of course Yngwie couldn’t resist noodling through bits of his favorite classics.

Right, let’s get to the point. At 8:15 p.m. the local boys, the pride of Vienna, called Codex, shuffled onto the stage. The sound was ideal, more than ideal for a support act, actually perfectly distinct. Stereo chorus effects, a compressor, the singer’s echo effect, not a single bit of noise to be heard. But… Well, I won’t say otherwise! The guys are good musicians and they mesh great together. The singer is obviously a slightly less experienced stage animal, because he was scared stiff like a rabbit. What saved him was a trained voice, despite a not-yet-lived-in approach. And what were they cranking out? An obscure modern-day offshoot, …hard to even pin down. Some kind of twist on thrash. Solos stripped out (the guitarist was definitely top class, fast and precise picking, transitions played perfectly clean, and excellent full-bodied riffing), simplified transitions, music built on half-step endings. So melody in the classic sense of the word was pretty hard to find. The sound was full, mostly thanks to excellent gear and PA and the tight interplay of the drummer, bassist and guitarist on stage. The singer, with his crystal-clear trained voice, tried to bring a bit more melody into the dark sound, but came across as too inconspicuous. He needs more aggression, anger, rage. Maybe a chunk of raw horse steak would help. That’s what was missing. And the effect? In the front row I nearly fell asleep. But the band’s approach was decent, the guys put in the effort and earned their applause every time. It’s just that the music has no real connection to metal. Generally speaking, I’ll now say something paradoxical, but the whole thing sounded more like steel-plated pop, especially in the song where the rhythm was literally copied from some eighties new romantics (Spandau Ballet) with half-step riffs laid over it. We also got U2 (With Or Withouth You), and I wondered what on earth U2 did for the good of humanity to deserve that.

Well, the dying was over after an hour, but we waited another hour, so the dying was far from over. And finally Malmsteen and his crew appeared on stage. In the meantime they had pumped enormous amounts of smoke onto the stage, so I almost suffocated, and that smoke-blowing thing was hissing like a snake.

Rise Up at 10 p.m. The buzzing mush and muddiness ended with the next track. Ship Of Fools put things in their place. Clear sound. Yngwie? Hey, the moment he walked on stage he kicked five picks into the crowd. A behavior pattern like a conditioned reflex. The man doesn’t skimp on guitar scales, and he doesn’t skimp on picks either. He completely stunned us with them during the show. The roadie showed up on stage at least five times and paranoidly stuck new ones on the mic stand, so the maestro could fling at least a good fifty among the people. It’s an interesting phenomenon. This way a guitar virtuoso communicates with the audience. And those picks lie all over the stage, among the cables and foot switches. He kicked one pick so hard that it bounced off the belly of some horny fan in the front row and still kept enough kinetic energy to fly back onto the stage between the monitors. So now you’re asking whether I went to the gig to watch flying picks and calculate free falls, slanted throws, horizontal throws and similar physics stuff, or to enjoy the music of Y.J. Malmsteen? But I wouldn’t have pointed it out if it weren’t such a peculiarity. I’ve never seen a musician have such a blast on stage with this. Arpeggio, poof, a pick into the crowd, new arpeggio and poof, another pick into the crowd…. Yngwie was really having boundless fun with it.

And soon we got the scene, one stage – one man. The solo spot after Stronghold, where Yngwie treated himself to a stroll through the legacy of classical masters Paganini and Albigioni. Every note finds its placed and perfectly timed spot. Sharp and hellishly fast, and clean as a tear. Racing, and only extremely wound-up racing, flowed into the next song from the latest record, where the rest of the band (except Dougie) joined the guitar god on stage as they shredded through Baroque And Roll. For Dreaming from the album “The Oddyssey” Yngwie took an acoustic guitar in hand, and of course this one was also fitted with the rising horse symbol (Ferrari’s emblem, which stands for Yngwie’s band Rising Force), just like every one of his white Fender Stratocasters.

One of the highlights was undoubtedly the performance of the trilogy (Trilogy). The guitar machine-gunner came completely alive, and at times you actually think it’s Blackmore up there. Judging by the gestures, by the playing… Although when it comes to mastering the guitar, the two are incomparable. Yngwie is Ritchie’s upgrade. At twelve, Yngwie could play all the Deep Purple solos “up and down” the guitar neck. And his obsession with Ritchie Blackmore is more than obvious on stage (same guitar model, playing Rainbow and Deep Purple classics, the same moves on stage). That’s a pity, because heh.., the rhetorical question arises whether Yngwie is expressing himself or trying to express Blackmore. The solo masterpiece segued into the earthy Red House. Hendrix’s blues was sung by Yngwie himself, who tried to conjure that earthy feel of smoky night clubs with his vocals. He lifted us onto wings again with a solo adventure taken from his album “Concerto Suite”, namely Fugue. Malmsteen convinced even the last doubting Thomas in the hall that day who the boss is. At full tilt and tirelessly he fired off bursts of lightning-fast scales and staged a truly dramatic finale to the longest solo adventure in the setlist by snapping the strings off his guitar, riding the tremolo to the max and pulling some moves that actually made me think he intended to smash the guitar to bits. At some point a roadie showed up on stage. Scared stiff like a rabbit, he waited for Yngwie, kneeling on the floor, to toss the guitar backwards into his arms after the number was over. Will he catch it? The roadie did the job successfully and vanished back to where he belongs. Into the dark backstage.

Yngwie went off for a well-deserved mug (two or three?) of beer while we got to enjoy the keyboardist’s solo adventure, the masterpieces of bassist Mick Cervino (ex-Blackmore’s Night) and Patrick Johansson’s artillery assault on drums. Then Yngwie ran back on stage and together they fired up the classic You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget, where the crowd started swaying more lively again, singing along to the verses. In the middle of the song Yngwie, the improvisation expert, took a turn “his own way.” The band worked Deep Purple’s Demon’s Eye into the You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget classic and expertly slid back into the chorus of You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget and finished the song. “Some people believe in heaven, Ronnie James Dio believes in hell, and Yngwie believes in Valhalla!” That was Dougie’s introduction of the closing song (also from the latest album). How Yngwie twisted his pots I don’t know, but in the front row his riffing drowned out the entire band, as the guitar sound suddenly turned all buzzy.

Encore. After an acoustic intro played on his Fender, Yngwie unscrewed the classic riff. Mistreated. Ahhh, okay, I’m going to lose it. True, Dougie might be “cold” in the higher registers compared to Mike Boals or Michael Vescera, but in Mistreated he showed all his mastery of singing technique and, with full-on feeling and a full measure of improvisation, brought to life yet another Deep Purple classic from their Mk.III lineup (Lord/Paice/Coverdale/Hughes/Blackmore), the one I personally value most. Of course Yngwie couldn’t help but solo over the riffs with bursts of micron-precise scales and spice the song up to the extreme. “For a light snack” he also nailed the original Blackmore solo note for note. The song ended with a long, grandiose finish through a pure blues interlude. A true tribute to the legendary band (Deep Purple), and the crowd was offered limitless enjoyment along with it. The band closed the show with Rising Force. The audience came alive and, singing along to the verses, helped the artists bring their show to an end.

A Malmsteen gig is a special adventure, a different adventure compared to classic metal “party” shows, and that alone makes it worth catching. On top of that, his gigs draw an audience that’s a bit more mature, in the sense that they really come to listen to the music. You couldn’t find a single frustrated little metalhead trying to grab attention with a stage dive, dousing everyone around him with beer, crashing into people or imitating a helicopter rotor with his hard-on. Great, at least from one gig I came out dry and my hair wasn’t glued together with spilled beer. Yngwie and the crew, see you around!

ENGLISH version:
Being in the same old town and the same old place again, very early to participate that special event, we found enough time to collect and read very precisely all flyers that were revealing hot spring events in Planet Music (Big Brother And Holding Company, The Yarbirds, John Mayal). But after couple of minutes we met Dougie, who was the most active Malmsteen’s member at that moment. We asked him directly: “Where is Yngwie?” And Dougie replied: “He’s watching CNN!” Dougie who worked with Blackmore and did vocals on Rainbow’s “Strangers In Us All” was in good mood, positively surprised with three Purple and Rainbow die-hards and was ready to discus about all sort of things. So we’ve focused on Ritchie’s case.

Mick Cervino (ex- Rainbow’s Night) who also joined us in conversation applied, that Ritchie was even so arrogant that during one gig he approached to position where Mick was doing his bass job on stage and drew a line on the bottom of the stage. This line marked Mick’s active space where he’s aloud to move on stage in order to not cross that line. Mick added that he’s enjoining very much being with Yngwie on tour. The working spirit of touring team is fantastic, everything runs smoothly and Yngwie leaves his mates plenty of room to breathe. Being a part of Malmsten’s team in comparison with Ritchie’s regime full of strange restrictions seems therefore as if you change a night for a day.

Meanwhile Dougie entered the Marshall’s Café in Planet Music where Yngwie was still very busy with watching current CNN news about U.S.A. actions in Iraq. He returned with Yngwie’s signatures saying: “Master sends me!” He also dropped three guitar picks on the table and invited us to enjoy the listening of band’s sound check sessions that will include a lot of stuff from Deep Purple and Jimi Hendrix.

And so it was. Sound check jamming delivered Purple Haze, Voodo Chile (Hendrix), Heaven And Hell, Children Of The Sea (Black Sabbath), You Fool No One (Deep Purple) and was spiced up with classical stuff from 19th Century’s translated and extracted into very special Yngwie’s electrical experience.

Let’s get to the point. Codex from Vienna as a local support hit the stage at eight p.m. They offered phenomenal sound as a support group. Supreme sound, they knew the acoustical specifics of Planet Music cellar hall. Everything was crystal clear for an ear. Band was perfectly tuned in. All effects, from singers echo up to stereo chorus and compressor’s ringing were there to help in building a “no mistake” and perfect sound. Guys are four pieced group. Drummer, bassist, guitarist and vocalist. First three are experienced, good musicians and were looking very relaxed. Singer was a little stressed. He wasn’t as convincible as he’s pals. He looked frightened, but he balanced that lack of self confidence with he’s trained clean vocals. From this guy we can expect more in the future, that’s for sure. Maybe a little more emotional expressions on stage wouldn’t harm at all. Codex are trying to develop their unique style. Passages are simplified, almost no guitar solos included, but first class riffing with great palm muted chords. Style is uhh… how to call this? Well, songs are caught in mid tempo thrash drive, based on obscure sounded half tune conclusions. But here we have interesting contrast between melodic clean vocals and this obscure sharp edged music style. General expressions also left a feel that Codex felt out to be slightly poppy (cause of singer’s style). Unfortunately they didn’t get me under their flag, but anyway, I wish them good luck in future. The band included also live performance of U2 With Or Without You. I’m still wondering what this bloody U2 did so special on a rock scene to deserve that?
Well Codex played one hour. We waited another hour for maestro and company to start their show. One plus one makes two hours of dying to meet El President. And he showed up with Rise Up at 22:00 (or 10p.m.). Opener wasn’t sounding clear. Yngwie’s riffing diminished other instruments including Dougie on vocals. But next piece Ship Of Fools placed things where they should be. I’m talking about sound improvement.

Hey, Yngwie just hardly appeared on stage and first thing he was up to do was, guess what? As usual he immediately kicked off a few guitar picks into the crowd. This Yngwie’s behavior strategy is something very interesting to discuss a bit. It is a sort of communication between Yngwie and his audience. During the show, roadie appeared at least for a five times on stage in order to supply Yngwie with guitar picks. Roadie was looking very funny. He was sweating like hell and looking with eyes full of paranoia. I understand that, how can you ever find yourself relaxed in such position? You know that it is funny thing to do, but you must do it. Master commands you to. Well, almost any single time when Yngwie looked to the audience, he threw one pick into the crowd as it would be a part of ordinary way of “day to day” living (sleeping, eating, etc,…). It was funny when I watched how Yngwie kicked one pick with such force that it hit a fan in the front row in his stomach, but still kept enough kinesis, to return back on stage. So picks were lying all over the place. On stage, among the technical equipment, well they just kept on flying from all directions. One arpeggio, one flyin’ guitar pick, next arpeggio, next flyin’ pick. Again and again Yngwie just kept on showering us with those little plastic pieces. And he was having a real big time while doin’ it.

After band did Stronghold we face one stage – one man scene. It was Yngwie’s journey through Paganini’s and Albigioni’s legacy, but blazed out on electric way. Translated hellish precise, every single tune was clearly detached with my ears. It was manifestation of pure speed, speed and again blistering speed of fuckin’ light. Maestro who meanwhile received a company on stage (with Dougie’s exception) drove his band directly (with no pause) in the next instrumental song Baroque And Roll. Dreaming (from “The Odyssey” album) calm things a little bit. Yngwie used for that special acoustic event his guitar with a rising horse symbol drawing on it.

A highlight of that evening was Trilogy. Machine gun guitar hero with his astonishing wizardry all over the guitar’s fingerboard was highly determinate to rip it up. Mood completely took him in and he really gave all his 110% here. I popped my eyes out while standing still in front row with my mouth wide opened. Those were a real breathtaking moments.

What is also very interesting is the fact about Yngwie’s obsession with Ritchie Blackmore. It is an old story but anyway. “At the age of nineteen, he became the Macedonian king”…, sorry (this is Iron Maiden, 1986). Let’s start again. At the age of twelve, he knew all Deep Purple’s solos to slide them in both directions of guitar fingerboard. Yngwie’s gestures on the stage reminds on those of Ritchie, also swinging the guitar around and over his body, than sliding the fingerboard with both hands, etc… This heaven’s solo fantasy faded directly into earthly Hendrix’s cover Red House with Yngwie on lead vocals. He tried to sound raunchy. This move (including of Red House in set list) made a nice contrast to a gig as whole.

Mood completely changed after Yngwie fired Fugue from his album “Concerto Suite”. This was firing storm of blazing arpeggios all over the place again. Where are his fingers, does anybody probably sees them? This was first highlight of the evening. This solo attraction was even lengthened with its orgasmic end with Yngwie who scrapped all six strings from poor instrument and threw them into the audience. At a moment I thought to myself: “Hey, his going for that Hendrix’s ritual!” (to burn guitar with gasoline). But instead of doing this he waited at the end of that act for roadie to appear behind his backs. After a sign, Yngwie thrown instrument over his head backward in the arms of roadie who scored his final touch down.

After that, the band went for a couple of beers. But Mick remained on stage and provided some good vibes out of his astonishing bass solo. After Mick ended his thing, Patrick Johanson’s drum flak began to thunder all over the hall. At a certain point Yngwie ran back on stage and band fired as one You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget. Audience became more active again. In the middle section of a song, maestro started a well known riff. The band incorporated Purple’s classic “Demon’s Eye”. I was amazed. After that Dougie replied to the audience: “Some people believes in heaven, Ronnie James Dio believes in hell, and Yngwie believes in Valhalla!” This was the ending song.

Encore. After acoustically driven intro with his Fender Strato, maestro turned everything into pure delirium by opening theme of another unbeatable Purple’s classic Mistreated. Perhaps Dougie can’t get so high in vocals as his predecessors Mike Boals or Michael Vescera, but with Mistreated he showed all his great talent and amazing feeling for improvisations. He did it with full force, soulful and this felt out to be very convincible. This majesty from Purple’s Mk.III period (Lord/Paice/Coverdale/Hughes/Blackmore) got its wings. Yngwie perforated the song with his solos and arpeggios. Almost all guitar lines where riffs are placed in song’s original version were done in that Yngwie’s fashion and spiced up with all sorts of his own guitar ornaments, as it was actually expected. A long lasting beauty of this song faded into grand bluesy end that seemed as it won’t ever stop. A real dedication to the legendary band. Pure gates of delirium ended with full blown striker Rising Force with audience singing along with the band.

Malmsteen’s show is always something special. It is unique and unusual (from metal maniac’s point of view) and I think that every single one of us should taste it once in his life. It was also cool because there were no frustrated “metal earthdogs” that would come on gig to stage dive or to pour litres of beer on the crowd a and headbang through entire show, giving a common listener a real hard time to enjoy the live act (I’m too old for this shit!). Yngwie and guys, thank you for giving us incredible and unforgettable show. Take care and see you again as soon as possible!

author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Setlist:
01. Intro 
02. Rise Up 
03. Ship Of Fools 
04. Stronghold 
05. Solo (Yngwie plays Paganini) 
06. Baroque And Roll 
07. Dreaming 
08. Razor Eater 
09. In The Name Of God 
10. Trilogy 
11. Red House 
12. Fugue 
13. Solo Keyboards (incl. Toccata And Fugue) 
14. Solo Bass 
15. Solo Drums 
16. You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget (incl. Demons Eye) 
17. Valhalla 
—encore— 
18. Intro 
19. Mistreated 
20. Rising Force

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