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Rating:
Before starting with the review of the show, I would like to make a brief premise, which I feel obliged to mention after reading certain, in my opinion, "blasphemous" criticisms:
Perhaps many of you will find my frequent references to songs or albums boring, but only in this way, now that I know every song by Steve note by note, can I afford the luxury of giving an opinion on his work while recognizing that I am simply a fan like everyone else.
Anyone who feels the need to say that a musician is not good should at least do their research, unless they live with him to see how he plays (a hypothesis to discard). I think that every musician, from the least known to the most commercial, if they are where they are (whether they make challenging music or not) it's because they've studied and learned something! We can only bow our heads and work very hard to reach certain levels; criticizing those who "know how to do" is a sign of mediocrity and Steve teaches us, through his collaboration with Eros Ramazzotti, that there are no limits in music; then everyone thinks as they wish and there are those who, unfortunately, will stubbornly continue to criticize these sacred monsters!
07/16/2007 - ROME - Ippodromo d.Cappannelle
The last Italian stop of Steve Vai's Sound Theories Tour is Rome; many expected to see Billy Sheehan or Tony MacAlpine on stage, but Steve had warned everyone on his website saying that "The Breed", the old lineup, was no more. The new band is the "String Theories": exactly, string, in fact, Steve (so to speak) sends Tony MacAlpine home and in his place come two new faces, violinists and occasionally keyboardists; these are the virtuoso Alex DePue and the beautiful Ann Marie Calhoun!! Dave Weiner and Jeremy Colson remain in their positions, while the already known Bryan Beller (who had already collaborated with Steve on albums like "The Ultra Zone", in the song "Christmas Time is Here" and in the concert now on dvd "Visual Sound Theories") replaces the acrobat Billy Sheehan.
The sound immediately appears more compact and if it weren't for the violinists, one would say that Mangini, Keneally, and Bynoe have returned!! In fact, in the live at the Astoria theater in 2001, the sound seemed to deviate a bit too much from a single point of balance, perhaps due to the "too much talent" of MacAlpine and Sheehan, who often enriched the discourse with furious licks! Steve gives little to the newcomers: he offers everyone the chance to play their own piece or a solo (among the various, Dave Weiner performs "Shove the Sun Aside" taken from the album of the same name and the two terrible violinists engage in a duel that ends with the famous caprice by Paganini, which sowed discord between Steve Vai and his surprising rival in the movie "Crossroads"), but no excesses during the pieces!
The show, which young Zack Wiesinger preludes, opens with "Now We Run" and "Oooo" before Steve changes guitar (he will change many and will often change clothes and look) to perform a spine-tingling "Building The Church"!
Steve proves himself an excellent showman in whipping his nephew and technician Roger Vai with his coat before "Tender Surrender" (and here finally appears the mythical EVO) and in introducing "Firewall", of which he pretends to have forgotten the initial tongue twister which he will then read on a piece of paper he carries in his pocket.
In "The Crying Machine" Steve decides to make the piece more "crying" by granting a solo to Ann Marie Calhoun: poignant... yet in the background, a choir makes it clear that the audience appreciates Ann Marie's Oriental beauty with an equally poignant "Faccela vedè, faccela toccà!"; perhaps a bit less poignant than the song....
The execution of "Freak Show Excess" receives applause, one of his most difficult pieces, with Dave Weiner on sitar. Then begins the "acoustic" phase of the concert with "Angel Food" and "All About Eve" which really gives chills and in which appears, in my opinion, the most beautiful solo of all Vai's work performed in unison by violin and guitar (few notes but good ones!).
"Die to Live", but especially "The Audience is Listening" and "Juice" ignite the audience, which is literally silenced by the superb, sublime, ineffable "Whispering a Prayer"!..and silence fell... everyone quiet except to applaud. This piece is agreeable to everyone, wherever Steve performs it.
But the crowd has time to get excited again: "Taurus Bulba" is performed with great skill and precision, with a triumphant finale, and it almost seems like the concert is over. Steve thanks, exits the stage, but he has forgotten something: three pillars of his work: he performs in a row "Liberty" and "Answers" before the grand finale, needless to say, "For The Love Of God", precise, missing not a note!
In the end, applause abounds for a great musician, launched in '82 by Frank Zappa, who nevertheless has to endure thousands of criticisms from a bunch of "indifferent" and "envious" Dantean infernos who, somewhat out of envy and somewhat out of ignorance, tend to belittle with unorthodox terms the talent and originality (it is rare to find two similar pieces; an artist who can range from "Freak Show Excess" to "Christmas Time is Here", to the Indian "The Blood and Tears", to "Melissa’s Garden", to "Sisters", to the beautiful "The Attitude Song", to the "Fire Garden Suite" and a collection of pieces specially written for different states of the world, is to be admired for his versatility in effortlessly moving from one style to another; a "citizen of the world" man who also knows how to capture traditional Romanian, Italian, French melodies, etc., and transform them into a work of art, consider the various "Babushka", "Being With You (in Paris)" and the others from "Alive in an Ultra World").
The show has fully satisfied me, and from zero to ten it definitely deserves a 9 (it would have been 10 if Steve had played the song for Italy "Principessa").
Infinite thanks to Steve for the wonderful show that will soon be documented in the live DVD in Minneapolis. Let’s hope we get the chance to hear his melodies countless more times from so few meters away!
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