Steve Vai - Passion and Warfare 25th Anniversary Tour - Bristol O2 Academy 7 June 2016
I’ve a confession to make. Despite being blown away by Vai’s recorded
work since I first heard him on PIL’s Album in 1986, he’d never quite cut-it
the three times I’d seen him previously (with David Lee Roth and twice solo).
Unlike the live performances of other virtuosos - Van Halen, Malmsteen,
Dimebag - Vai’s playing and music didn’t shine on stage: technical wizardry
aside I found it sterile and unengaging.
Still, it’s not every day a living legend turns up at a 1,600 capacity
club ten minutes walk from my front door so I toddled along with low
expectations.
What followed was an overwhelming musical and visual spectacle. A
relentlessly exciting, kinetic and entertaining three hours of jaw-dropping
virtuosity and supreme rock showmanship delivered with wit, energy and an
overriding sense of joy.
Opening with the ultra-detuned monster Bad Horsie it was obvious Vai was
pulling out all the stops: laser beams, video projections and the loudest PA
I’ve heard since Motorhead. The next three tunes - The Crying Machine, Gravity Storm, Whispering a Prayer - were enough
to confirm his status as one of rock’s greatest guitarists; and then came the
money shot: Passion and Warfare in its entirety and including video duets with
Satriani and Petrucci.
We where then treated to a reminder that he was a teenage prodigy who went toe to toe with the great Zappa (Stevie’s Spanking), a light hearted bit of audience participation (Build Me a Song) and two more blistering displays of extreme rock virtuosity in Racing the World and Fire Garden Suite IV – Taurus Bulba.
We where then treated to a reminder that he was a teenage prodigy who went toe to toe with the great Zappa (Stevie’s Spanking), a light hearted bit of audience participation (Build Me a Song) and two more blistering displays of extreme rock virtuosity in Racing the World and Fire Garden Suite IV – Taurus Bulba.
His band deserves a lot of credit: they are perhaps the best group he’s
ever assembled and were perfect for his music, which is saying something
considering the world class musicians he’s used in the past.
Jeremy
Colson is that rare combination of technique, power, energy and dynamics only
seen in the likes of Mikkey Dee and Neil Peart.
Dave
Weiner - nailed every aspect of ‘human’ virtuoso guitar: shred, rhythm,
acoustic, sitar. He would be a star in any rock band.
Philip
Bynoe
was perhaps the most impressive of the bunch: when faced with the sheer
virtuosity of such a band it can be difficult for a bass player to make his
mark and find space but he managed it with aplomb: he mined a rich vein of
subsonic terror and breezed through the ‘fiddly bits’ like the tapped solo in
Blue Powder.
And then there’s Mr. Vai. On this showing he proved to be a unique
meta-talent who also knows his rock ‘n’ roll and how to put on a show. His
inhuman command of his instrument was best illustrated by his moving between
the various stage monitors to generate different harmonic distortion during
Whispering a Prayer: when one of the monitors failed to feedback he didn’t
hesitate and simply blew gently across the strings to coax the machines into
producing a sound so sweet it had grown men misty eyed. In a world of
uber-talented guitarists there can’t be many who not only play the stage as an
instrument but also do it with just the power of their breath.
If you get the chance to catch the great man live, grab it with both
hands. You’ll thank yourself for years to come.
l Bad Horsie (Crossroads intro. movie)
l The Crying Machine
l Gravity Storm
l Whispering a Prayer
Passion and Warfare
l Liberty (video from
Guitar Legends Sevilla Expo ‘92 with Brian May)
l Erotic Nightmares
l The Animal
l Answers (Joe Satriani video duet)
l The Riddle
l Ballerina 12/24
l For the Love of God
l The Audience Is Listening (John Petrucci video duet)
l I Would Love To
l Blue Powder
l Greasy Kid’s Stuff
l Alien Water Kiss
l Sisters
l Love Secrets
l Stevie’s Spanking (with video of Vai & Zappa)
l Build Me a Song
l Racing the World
l Fire Garden Suite IV – Taurus
Bulba
Band:
Bass:
Philip Bynoe
Drums:
Jeremy Colson
Guitar: Steve Vai