Post by Mojo on Dec 17, 2009 0:27:27 GMT -5
... and quit after 2 1/2 songs.
Either it's pure genius, or pure crap. I honestly can't decide. The musicianship displayed, in terms of raw technique and composition, were jaw dropping. And not just Vai's, either. The rest of the band was amazing.
But I must confess that I felt like I was watching a guy who learned the entire dictionary by heart, and then did the same with all the grammar books he could find, but he still doesn't have one original, compelling story to tell.
You could have told me that the song title was "The fox running in the woods" or "Pearl Harbor" or "A midsummer night's dream" and I would not have been able to choose one. I simply could not relate, even on the most basic level, to the music I was listening to.
The guy is just about possessed when onstage, and actually quite visually entertaining in some way - some way over the damn top, way. But still, there's value there, no doubt.
The constant onslaught of notes with no meaning that I could decipher was draining. Everything is played from 12th fret up, at breakneck speed, or with gravity-defying bends. Tapping is omni-present, guitars are changed, though the tone remains the same. The two fiddle players are kick (_!_) but at the same time don't seem to add much to the story here either.
The drummer sweated more in two tunes than any one human being should in a 24-hour period, but dang what enthusiasm he had. He was definitely hanging w/ Vai, measure after measure.
So I am at a complete loss here, because I do not want to slam the guy, yet I can't find one redeeming quality to hang on to.
He's either way ahead of his time, and I will one day have the tools to understand him, or he's just overcome with technique and has a dearth of intelligible emotions to express through his music. Either way, it left me drained, confused and quite frankly, not impressed musically.
Either it's pure genius, or pure crap. I honestly can't decide. The musicianship displayed, in terms of raw technique and composition, were jaw dropping. And not just Vai's, either. The rest of the band was amazing.
But I must confess that I felt like I was watching a guy who learned the entire dictionary by heart, and then did the same with all the grammar books he could find, but he still doesn't have one original, compelling story to tell.
You could have told me that the song title was "The fox running in the woods" or "Pearl Harbor" or "A midsummer night's dream" and I would not have been able to choose one. I simply could not relate, even on the most basic level, to the music I was listening to.
The guy is just about possessed when onstage, and actually quite visually entertaining in some way - some way over the damn top, way. But still, there's value there, no doubt.
The constant onslaught of notes with no meaning that I could decipher was draining. Everything is played from 12th fret up, at breakneck speed, or with gravity-defying bends. Tapping is omni-present, guitars are changed, though the tone remains the same. The two fiddle players are kick (_!_) but at the same time don't seem to add much to the story here either.
The drummer sweated more in two tunes than any one human being should in a 24-hour period, but dang what enthusiasm he had. He was definitely hanging w/ Vai, measure after measure.
So I am at a complete loss here, because I do not want to slam the guy, yet I can't find one redeeming quality to hang on to.
He's either way ahead of his time, and I will one day have the tools to understand him, or he's just overcome with technique and has a dearth of intelligible emotions to express through his music. Either way, it left me drained, confused and quite frankly, not impressed musically.
