Seeing Steve Vai in Concert

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I went to see Steve Vai the other night at the Boar's Head, a local bar that features nightly music. It was the best concert I've ever been to. My friend Rob and I showed up about an hour and a half before the show and had trouble finding seats. On a side note - don't order the 'wicked ale'. They should call it 'funk' instead of ale. It was more than a little foul.
The opening act was a guy named Eric Sardienes or something like that. I wish I knew how to spell his last name, he was a very talented guitarist. They started playing some southern rock and blues and continued for about a full hour. The last song really cooked, Eric's fingers were flying and he was giving a good show. He grabbed his beer bottle and started using it as a slide on the steel guitar's neck. Whenever he would reach a peak in the music he would lift his thumb off the neck and the well-shook beer would spray. He then jumped down into the audience and walked through the crowd while playing, around, and back up onstage. He reminded me very much of the 'motor city madman', Ted Nugent. Very entertaining.
After a half an hour interlude, Steve Vai hit the stage. You have no doubt seen a guitarist more popular than Steve Vai. There's a slim possibility you might have seen a guitarist wilder than Steve Vai. I doubt you've ever seen a guitarist faster than Steve Vai, and I know for sure you've never seen any guitarist this talented and creative. I can't expain it any other way than it was orgy ala guitar.
I saw Steve Vai use something that looked like a straight razor to get his guitar to 'talk'. I saw him play one-handed. I saw him stroke the strings in strange ways to get even stranger sounds (I was only twenty feet away!). He had his microphone hooked to a foot pedal, making his voice higher and lower pitched for fun. I also saw him play a three necked guitar (some of you remember those things from the hair band days) without letting any of the strings get cold. Have you ever heard anybody play 1/64th notes in a ballad? I have!
His backup band was almost equally as talented. Mike McNeely was his right hand man onstage playing a second lead and/or keyboards. At one point Steve took a break and Mike took over playing his guitar with one hand and playing the keyboard with the other. The drummer, Jimmy, put on a show and had serious fun getting the crowd going with a rippin' solo. The other two guitarists took turns switching between bass and rythym.
Then Steve Vai started a funky sounding song, stopped for a second and explained the background to the song. "I don't do drugs, I've never done drugs. But there was this one time..." He went on to explain being slipped a tainted drink at a party and how what he saw and heard inspired the song. The song fit the circumstances. It was a riot!
As part of a promotion by KATT radio, a local guitarist name Ian got to play onstage with Steve Vai. Guitarists in the city sent in demo tapes and after it was narrowed down to about five tapes Steve picked the guitarist he wanted onstage. Ian played a riff and the band picked it up. Ian and Steve then began playing the impromptu jam. There were technical difficulties, so we couldn't hear Ian for the first half of the song, but he was playing his heart out and having fun. Then the band jumped into Led Zepplin's 'Black Dog' with Ian. Steve began using the foot pedal on his microphone to imitate Robert Plant's screaming. Absolutely wild!
They played an encore, and what an encore it was! Eric S. came back out with Steve and they started playing. In the middle of the song they started dueling. It reminded me of the Charlie Daniel's Band 'Devil Went Down To Georgia'. Eric started playing and it was bitchin'. He was strutting his stuff and playing fantastically. It had a dark edge to it and sounded great. Then Steve Vai stepped up and blew him away with some incredibly fast and clean fingerboarding. Eric had an expression of 'Holy #@%$!'. The crowd of about four hundred in this bar was going nuts!
And then it was over and all I have left of his 90 minute set is great memories and sore eardrums. If Vai comes to your town, spend the fifteen bucks, you'll be glad!

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