When G3 performs tonight, three of the '80s best guitarists will showcase their unique and satisfying styles.
By PHILIP BOOTH
Published October 30, 2003
[Publicity photos]
Yngwie Malmsteen
Joe Santriani
Steve Vai
For superstar rock guitarists, life was sweet in the 1980s: Many of the most talented six-string wizards parlayed fretboard firepower into positions with hard rock and hair metal bands that topped the pop charts and raided arenas around the world.
Steve Vai, a former Frank Zappa sideman who released his debut solo album nearly 20 years ago, was no exception. He began his ascent to rock stardom as a replacement for Swedish ace Yngwie Malmsteen in Alcatrazz, and appeared on the group's 1985 album, Disturbing the Peace. The same year, he showed up as the devil's guitarist, a fleet-fingered demonic virtuoso dressed all in black, in the blues-themed film Crossroads; he sparred with a character played by Ralph Macchio (aping the guitar work of Ry Cooder).
But Vai's greatest arena-rock glory came in 1986, when he joined David Lee Roth's absurdly exuberant band, playing chief jester to Roth's vulgar clown prince. Vai also hooked up with Whitesnake for one album, 1989's platinum-selling Slip of the Tongue.
"That was the best, most unbelievable time," Vai, 43, said last week from his tour bus, parked in Chicago for a concert at the Riviera Theater. "Billy (Sheehan, the bassist in Roth's band) and I were talking about it yesterday. It was a special time in the music business. It was the '80s. You could wear all sorts of wild stuff and play your a- off and people enjoyed it. We were touring arenas and experiencing all the stuff about the excesses of rock stardom."
Vai, and two other '80s guitar masters - Malmsteen and Joe Satriani - have teamed for the sixth edition of G3. Satriani and Vai organized the touring extravaganza seven years ago, and the third slot on the bill has variously gone to Eric Johnson, Robert Fripp, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Uli Jon Roth, among others.
The tours, which have generated a DVD and a CD, celebrate the long friendship between Satriani and Vai. Both grew up in Carle Place, in Long Island, N.Y., and Vai took lessons from Satriani, five years his senior. Vai used his mid 1980s prominence to plug Satriani, recommending him for Mick Jagger's solo tour.
Satriani's 1987 album, Not of This Earth, went platinum, and stayed in Billboard's Top 30 for 18 months. Twin double-CD retrospective collections, The Infinite Steve Vai and The Electric Joe Satriani, will be released on Nov. 18, less than a week after the G3 tour ends.
"Playing with Joe is always a big thrill for me," Vai said. "Yngwie adds another dimension to the whole thing."
For the tour, which reopens the renovated Ruth Eckerd Hall tonight, Malmsteen, Vai and Satriani each play a 45-minute set, and then join for the final segment of the show. Vai - whose last major-label CD, Alive in an Ultra World, was released in 2001 - describes the tour as a traveling mutual-admiration society.
"We each have relatively different tastes," he said. "Joe is very much into the melodic sort of popish type situation, and more into heavy rock. Yngwie is a fan of classical music, basically, and I'm kind of like into more esoteric and eclectic things, and it all shows in our guitar playing.
"It's just pure joy of expression. I don't think any of us knew what to expect. I watch Yngwie play, and he is absolutely an extraordinary player. He stands to the left of me (on stage), and he breaks into the powerful style of his. The biggest mistake you can do is to try and compete with it, because you'll get mowed down. What he does is inspire me to stretch the boundaries of my own style."
PREVIEW: G3, at 7:30 tonight, Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. $35-$55. (727) 791-7400 or (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100.
