Gig Review & pics from Steve Vai concert in Barcelona, the past July from "Sound Theories Tour 2007"

It was Frontline promoter who bet on him again confirming Barcelona, Almeria, Murcia and Bergara dates with the final performance in Madrid introducing not only a new record but a new band... Last tour Sheehan, Macalpine and Vai formed the "cord trio", and now we have Bryan Beller on the bass, and instead of Macalpine playing rhythm guitar and keyboards we have Alex DePue and Ann Marie Calhoun as electric (and acoustic) violinist and keyboardist.

Always wanting to innovate within his style, and taking into account the record label's context of the tour, Mr. Vai opted for two violins instead of another guitar this time, supposing that with the intention of giving a symphonic and/or orchestral ambiance to his songs, apart from making various technical "approaches" to them. Risky changes, as we have said, but we will see if they work or not at the end of the concert.

It was strange that after a few weeks before the tour they still didn't know if there was going to be opening band or not. But a few days later they begin announcing in chat rooms and other media that Zack Wiesinger was going to join the tour, Steve's well-known, young instrumentalist friend who will be in charge of opening the shows every night.

Anyway, after picking up our press pass and entering Razzmatazz, we could wait to find out who Zack Wiesinger was. After waiting a while and the introduction by one of Steve's team members, Wiesinger came on stage.

Far from thinking that there would be a whole band, a languid guy with a big pompadour, armed with his Stratocaster stood before more that a thousand people, us included. You have to admit that Vai made a good choice, it was an ideal match, since he demonstrate the same eccentricities, such us the fact that he opens his show with an electric version of "The Pink Panther" theme.

After introducing himself to the audience he started to play somw of his own songs, showing himself d his technique off. It was amazing seeing how without a guitar pick he could play so fast, reminding us to people like Stevie Ray Vaughan for example... in his minishow we had time to see him play various different styles... classic rock, blues, even a few country chords or moreover some sang songs to which he told us to sing along with him. There was some funny songs which i couldn't identify which show they belong to, but except for that as i already said a lot of technique, eccentricities and a lot of agility for this young musician who will surely set people talking.

After a little bit more than 25 minutes of performance, and with some laughter from the audience, Zack left Razzmatazz's stage, anouncing the imminent performance and so waited for the audience of Mr. Vai and his guys.

After a short performance of Mr. Wiesinger the main sound equipment of that night needed to be changed and tried, and so it was... Zack's performance could have been a bit longer and so the one hour waiting would have been less tedious, because people started to desperate with all the try outs... But when the lights went out all reproaches faded away...

Among the smoke and the blue lights, the band jumped to the stage at a time while the audience shouted in unison, and so the show started as the previous ones in this tour, with "Now we run", from the "Elusive light and sound Vol. 1" album. Another peculiarity of this tour is that for the shows Vai plays some unreleased songs which he doesn't play very often, and so it was this first one.

It's a very complete song, and because of it being fast we can notice several rythms and techniques throught it, it amazed not only its solid base between guitars and drums, but also some changes of rythm which made violins take part in the song. Here we could see the first problem of the violins in the whole intrumental part, they couldn't be properly heard in those first strong tones, because all the sound was mainly led by the powerful base of guitars and Colson's drums.

"Oooo" was the next song to be heard, with no introduction and almost joined to the precious song we thought it was the same. A track from "The Ultra Zone" which was recalled for this tour and as previously said, it had the same rythm as the previous one... Very fast, the rest of the band members interacted very much on this one and the technique showed by Steve Vai was great, and he also played with a commemorative guitar of Ibañez's 25 anniversary.

New wave of aplauses for his guys and the well know guitarist, who wanted to calm down the sonic atmosphere that ruled the show... The blue lights ruled again the Razmatazz's stage and the emotive and sensual "Tender surrender" started to sound. Then, "Alien Love Secrets" 's turn, with that jazz base performed by Steve Vai with lots of feeling and some improvizations, played along with a very sensual and calmed rythm base as we said before. Time now for the feedback with the audience, introducing the bandmembers with the new signings... Ann and Alex in charge of the violins, Brian playing the bass, Colson on the drums and the "hairy" Dave Weiner on the synths. Steve didn't talk to the audience before until that moment, and he started to tell his typical jokes and introduced the next song.

There were some jokes such as reciting in a poetic way the onomatopoeic intro of "Firewall", the next one to be played: back to the latest Steve's studio album, "Real Illusions" to perform this song which wasn't played in the previous tour, the one presenting that album. A weird song, close to pop in vocals lines but with lots of tecniques and improvization from Vai. From one side of the stage came the guitar with leds in its neck to let the audience know that next song to be played would be "Building The Church", also extracted from the last album with that Ann and Alex's joint part on the keyboards, and Vai with his very fast guitar. It also must be said that those had to perform some ritmic guitar parts with their violins and face Vai in their technical "fights".

During the whole show there was room for the personal showing off of every band member, and the first one was Weiner, who delighted the audience with his skills on the 6 strings at the very beginning of the show. Another good point was the incredible set of lights used on stage, which was crucial at some points as for example the beginning of "I'm Becoming"... Vai started t use his slow and atmospheric chords, the perfect intro for the song. Again the great collaboration of the violins, mixing with Vai to infer the song with elegance and moderation. More from "Real Illusions" with the next one, "Freak Show Excess", a song in which every single member took a very important part, because there were a lot of very quick changes of rythm.

"Die to Live" was another live-unreleased song, which was performed in a very outstanding way, like the previous ones taken from "Alien Love Secrets", and which gave the sensible side back to the show. It was now Ann and Alex who had their time to play their solo violin's part, the first one very classic and the second more improvised, they "fought" on the Razzmatazz's stage, and in a very curious way... they both ended with a Mozart's classical piece, the same fragment Steve Vai plays in the movie "Crossroads".

Time for the acoustic part of the show, which was way more dynamic than the one in the previous tour and with less ballads than that time. This time, only Vai was sitting in a stool, and it was he who started the set with a little improvization with a very subtle Ann Marie, and then he linked it with "All about Eve"... One of the most emotional moments of the show was seeing Steve Vai giving himself in to his emotions only with his accoustic and no other to play along with him. More acoustic songs came, such as "Lucky Charms", "Light of the moon" or a new improvization with Alex, violin and guitar together...

As a dynamic point to the concert, Jeremy Colson came on stage with a percusión set hanging from his neck, very weird, decorated with skulls, bells, samples, etc... The typical gag that was also performed in the previous tour was done this time, and so "Angel Food" was played, fragment from "Fire Garden Suite", where instead of a piano following Vai we had Colson's drums doing the part, very impressive.

Vai left the stage once again to change his outfit, as he did several times that night, and so Colson showed himself off. There's not much to explain about how strong he plays the drums, with a lot of power and quality, which he offered to the audience in his solo, where he played with the already recorded samples to give some variety to his performance.

The band as a whole came back to the stage to perform the ending of the concert, starting with "The Murder" and "Juice". On the first one we could hear again the violins, guitars and so on, but on the second one on the contrary we could only listen to Vai-Beller and Colson, being this song the first one that provided the audience with a bassist at the centre of the stage being the main figure along with Vai, while he had being quite hidden and shy the previous minutes. They were mixing this with the calmness of "Whispering a prayer", the eternal an mythical ballad, which could be heard on Vai's guitar through the Razzmatazz's loudspeakers... He played it with a lot of feeling and emotion, receiving a large amount of aplausses from the crowd, he also offered some improvizations to make it slightly different.

Bringing back another piece of "Fire Garden Suite", the solemn "Taurus Bulba", with its complex instrumental development, it was played perfectly by everyone, mainly because the concert was coming to an end and they all felt now more confident than before, the violins went back to the ritmic parts, keyboards, change of rythm... something near to "prog" with all those changes and difficulty.

The show was coming to its end and this meant the magical Vai's trio was about to come... Frsrt one, "Liberty", which made the audience to give in to the hymns, very thrilling, melodic and more symphonic than before thanks to Ann Marie and Alex's strings. Change of style with "The Attitude Song", which has also being covered for the last album with the Holland's Metropolitan Orchestra. But here in Barcelona we could listen to it in a more direct way, more enjoyable and lively, matching with the end of the party.

Steve was the one in charge of lower the whole of the sound created from the previous song, leaving the drums along with the bass until silence came... and from the left side of the stage came Ann Marie, playing with her violin the intro for "For the Love of God", moving the audience and an ovation could be heard from them. There we had it again, a great song which has quickness, technique, feeling, anger, power and more elegance thanks to the string's section in the band, a very exquisite ending for sure.

He did it again, Vai kept on introducing his songs and his band, even knowing all the risks implied, like some troubles with the sound at some points and some insecurity from Brian basically, because the band's quite new; but all in all with some more concerts these errors will be solved. To your feet, Mr. Vai.

Text & photos: David A.
Translation: Leticia Ballester

IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE PICS WITH MORE RESOLUTION, CLICK ON IT OR CLICK THIS LINK TO GO TO OUR ALBUM.

ENLACES RELACIONADOS:

Set-list Steve Vai - Barcelona, 5th July 2007:

1.-Now we run
2.-Oooo
3.-Tender Surrender
4.- Band Intro
5.-Fire wall
6.- Building the Church
7.- Dave's Solo
8.- I´m Becoming
9.-Freak Show Excess
10.- Die to Live
13.-Violin Solo's
14.- Intro Steve Vai Solo
15.- Annie And Steve
16.-All about Eve
17.- Steve Vai Solo ( Ballerina )
18.- Alex and Steve
19.- Lucky Charms
20.- Light of the moon
21.- Jeremy and Steve
22.- Angel food
23.- Drum Solo
24.- The Murder
25.- Juice
26.- Whispering a Prayer
27.-Taurus Bulba
28.-Liberty
29.-The attitude Song
30.- For the Love of God