Steve Vai
Stillness in motion: Vai live in L.A.

Officially and for a few days now, the shelves of music stores have a new guest: a certain Steve Vai. This highly cited guitarist in the rock world has released a new CD. The title easily reveals the content of the new recording: "Stillness in motion: Vai live in L.A.", is obviously live: therefore not a new album of unreleased tracks, but a collection of live performances. It goes without saying that, being such a special figure and giving his all particularly in live situations, the album delivers a remarkable adrenaline charge.

Years ago, when he was touring stages around the world with former Deep Purple vocalist David Coverdale, Vai – something evident in the videos of that era –, commanded the stage so much that even if he hadn’t played a note, he would have been convincing all the same. After all, these are qualities that cannot be learned: as Paul of the Fab Four said some time ago, explaining and preparing a pop phenomenon is completely impossible; no school, no matter how scientifically (or perhaps because of this...) prepared, can ‘graduate’ a rock star. Although Vai studied with very knowledgeable people (especially with Satriani, another top-class guitar screamer), his talent is... his own.

Nevertheless, to return to the initial point, "Stillness in motion: Vai live in L.A." was created and recorded during the "Story of light World tour". The album is essentially an audio and video recording directed by Jeff Rifkin. With this work, Vai revisits his past, in the sense that the CD is released under the Sony Music label, with which he had artistic contacts between 1990 and 2000. In the CD's liner notes, you can read a statement by the guitarist and singer-songwriter made, as usual, with great sincerity: "To say that this tour, from which my new album is drawn, was a great life experience would be like saying the sun is hot".

For Vai enthusiasts, "Stillness in motion: Vai live in L.A”, features a video segment titled "The space between the notes - Tour mischief". The latter addresses the aspect of life on tour, which, no less than the compositional element and the legendary inspiration of artists, remains a coveted experience for those who, like most fans, live their lives in an endless circular routine. Then, perhaps, being around the planet can turn out to be just the chance to see hotel rooms all the same and loneliness to be defeated with a bottle of whiskey (Cobain teaches). The fact is that, as Nietzsche said, the ideal, once reached, vanishes: a misfortune for professional idealists. This is also what artists are for, to understand the paradox of touching the ideal and finding it transformed into prosaic ordinariness.