One thought on “Steve Vai

  1. shinichi Post author

    For The Love Of God

    Steve Vai – Where The Wild Things Are [full concert]

    uploaded by BogdanG.

    https://youtu.be/Ik0T9ivZVhk

    (2012)

    Disc 1

    01. Paint Me Your Face
    02. Now We Run
    03. Oooo
    04. Building The Church
    05. Tender Surrender
    06. Band Intros
    07. Firewall
    08. The Crying Machine
    09. Shove The Sun Aside
    10. I’m Becoming
    11. Die To Live
    12. Freak Show Excess
    13. Apples In Paradise
    14. All About Eve
    15. Gary 7
    16. Beastly Rap
    17. Treasure Island
    18. Angel Food
    19. Earthquake Sky

    Disc 2

    01.The Audience Is Listening
    02.The Murder
    03. Juice
    04. Whispering A Prayer
    05. Taurus Bulba
    06. Liberty
    07. Answers
    08. For The Love Of God

    Taken from a two-hour-and-40-minute sold-out show recorded at the State Theatre in Minneapolis, Where the Wild Things Are is yet another live showcase of meticulously mapped Steve Vai compositions. Much of the material is new, and tested out in front of an unfamiliar but eager audience, with Vai exercising his chops to the limits. It’s a chance for him to bust out every trick in the book: blazing through ridiculously difficult scales, double hand-tapping extravaganzas (where he plays the guitar like a piano), and sick string bends and whammy bombs to the point where his custom Jem neck should be left, imaginably, in the same shape as the rubbery guitar on the cover of Flex-Able. The listening experience is more geared toward frequent guitar clinic attendees than someone seeking background music for a day drive. It’s not easy listening. It’s the kind of stuff that deserves full concentration, and while most will furrow their brows while focusing on the guitar pyrotechnics, the rest of the instrumentalists are tightly locked and highly ambitious in their own right. Touring for the first time as a collective, violinists/keyboardists Ann Marie Calhoun and Alex DePue join Vai, along with bassist Bryan Beller, drummer Jeremy Colson, and guitarist/sitarist Dave Weiner. The virtuosic tendencies run high, the musicianship is incredible, and as a whole, the group sounds more like one of Zappa’s stage bands than, say, Roth’s. Things are still flamboyant and over the top, as expected from the owner of a three-pronged heart-shaped guitar, but there are signs of maturity. As a guitarist and as a composer, Vai’s only getting better with age, as proven by Real Illusions: Reflections’ sprawling, elastic “Freak Show Excess” and “Building the Church,” running the gamut with haphazard emotional shifts, flawless changes, and otherworldly playing.

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