Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Monday, 15th of July, 2013
American virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai continues to create intense instrumental guitar music whilst challenging his own incredibly high musical standards. His latest tour supporting recent ‘The Story of Light’ album brought the full band mode experience to our shores again after several years and without a support act, the show length of around two and a half hours made this a remarkable feat given the amount of material covered. His musicianship and mastery of technique, played largely on his Ibanez JEM and EVO guitars through Carvin Legacy amplifiers, is simply incredible to witness in a live setting.
Starting off with a bombastic, Vai’s funky threads made his centre stage full body rhythmic time keeping contrast the rest of the band who held down the fort brilliantly. Opening tracks ‘Racing The World’ and ‘Velorum’ had Steve’s theatrics accented by the rhythm section of Phil Bynoe on bass and the walloping drumming of Jeremy Colson, accompanied by Michael Aaron on keyboards and Vai’s talented side guitarist Dave Weiner. Steve unleashed a remarkable display of dexterity with his signature style and embellishing guitar noises. Shredders in the audience were in awe of his technical precision seen in legato runs, high pitched chirps, sweep picking, vast array of whammy bar tricks and aggressively wide vibrato. But with a clear sound mix that entailed minimal high gain generally, the musical themes and melodies were never sacrificed for performance despite the fact that Vai is virtually elastic with or without the instrument.
He uses technique to bring out a song’s expression and melody, not to show off.
More new material such as ‘Gravity Storm’ and ‘Weeping China Doll’ went from deep, sustaining guitar sounds into screaming guitar solos, all played gracefully. One of Vai’s rare qualities is to venture fearlessly into improvisational tangents yet still return to the song’s structures and stay on track. Older material has since evolved in this way such that classic ‘Passion and Warfare’ songs like ‘Answers’, ‘The Animal’ and ‘The Audience Is Listening’ all took detours of extended sections or little flourishes before reprising the key sections. A mid set acoustic part that had Vai on vocals for ‘Rescue Me or Bury Me’ followed by a musical chairs rendition of ‘Sisters’, took similar sideways explorations to good effect. Throughout, Steve’s precise but slightly restrained playing allowed the sustain of the instrument to fill the room when not mimicking his improvisational singing on guitar. Returning to full electric band mode to create a song with two star struck audience members also had a controlled stream of consciousness vibe.
Other highlights were the floating octaves of ‘Tender Surrender’ that culminated in a post emotive guitar solo fret rubbing sounds and feedback wash plus the different material from ‘The Ultra Zone’ album, delivered with Vai in an outlandish laser embellished costume on a darkened stage. Command over guitar wizardry and sound demonstrated in ‘For The Love of God’ and ‘Whispering A Prayer’ never ceases to amaze as winding notes moaned into the stratosphere. Ending the show with an extended version of ‘Taurus Bulba’ during the encore capped off a night of unrivalled instrumental guitar playing.