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Events and Reports - Yngwie Malmsteen - Live at Train, Aarhus - April 9'th 2003
I have been a fan of Yngwie for some years now. He has been very influential both on me but certainly also on the rest of the world. It happens very often that I see well-known guitarists quote Yngwie as an influence. And there is no denying his importance in metal; after all, the man developed a whole new genre: Neoclassical metal. So when I heard that he was coming to town, I knew that there was no way RevelationZ Magazine and I could miss this opportunty!
The first thing that surprised me was how many people showed up for this concert. The place was packed (about 500) with all sorts of people. There were young kids with long hair headbanging in front of the stage and there were people around 40 standing in the back with arms crossed concentrating on the music. And everything in between. Mostly guys of course; as singer Dougie White put it as he presented the next Yngwie solo: "I see some girls out there... But here is the reason your boyfriends brought you here tonight. A lesson with the maestro."
And did we ever get a lesson! Yngwie seemed happy to see this many people and was more than willing to comply with the crowds demands for guitar-wizardry. No one had any doubt that Yngwie was the main person here.
The show started with 3 songs from the new album Attack!: Rise Up, Ship of Fools and Stronghold. The crowd went crazy as soon as Yngwie went onstage. Dougie White may not be quite young anymore but he certainly has stage presence and a voice that can last a whole show without problems. I guess a lot of people had come to see him since I saw several Rainbow t-shirts and heard a lot of people scream his name. He had no problems to reach the high notes and he has a great falsetto voice. However I prefer when he uses the middle-area of his voice. It somehow has a better tone.
All together the band was tight and played really well together. The sound was good and loud. The band also seemed to have fun on stage. Dougie was running around getting the crowd to scream and clap their hands while Yngwie was kicking and doing all kinds of rock-poses. I still don't understand how he can throw the guitar over his back and catch it again without fucking up the guitar sound. I would expect that the guitar would get crazy and destroy the whole sound-picture but somehow that didn't happen. Must be some open chords he uses when he does this trick...
As anybody knows, guitar-heroes get solo spots in concerts. Could be Yngwie who started this trend. He certainly had a good one. We heard several pieces from his older cds, a Paganini caprice, a Vivaldi piece, a kid's song (no idea what this one is called in English) and several other pieces. One thing I really like is when he starts to play with the stereo-delay. He can get some very beautiful melodies this way. When he uses the cello-like sound he gets from using his patented volume-knob technique with the delay, it reminds me very much of Bach fugues. Very beautiful. Sometimes he would turn the volume-knob on the guitar down, achieving an almost clean sound on the electric guitar. I have never heard him do this before. A nice contrast to using distortion all the time.
One thing I was happy to hear was a part from his classical concerto. I believe it was Fugue with the whole orchestra behind him (from a cd of course). This is in my opinion one of the best cds he has ever made! And the hear it live was a great experience.
After Yngwie's solo, I was quite amazed that the rest of the band got to have solos too! I certainly didn't expect that. But it's only natural since he usually gets some very capable musicians to play with him. First one was the keyboardplayer Joakim Svalberg. This guy is very good. Sometimes he would sound very classical and other times jazzy. Some influence from Jens Johansson maybe? Patrik Johannson's drumsolo was one of the better ones I have heard. Very metal. Technical enough to keep it interresting and still very powerfull. The bass-solo of Mick Cervino was good too.
I really hope that this solo initiative can continue onto Yngwie's next disc. Would be very interresting to get some guitar/keyboard solo battles like he had with Jens Johansson in the old days. I like Yngwie's solos as much as the next man but some variation is nice from time to time.
I must admit that I prefer his first cds. Somehow the compositions seem better and the solos more melodic and interresting. So I was happy to hear some of the old songs. Dreaming started out with some great acoustic playing. The song is very melodic and here I could sing along (and did!) as did many others. You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget was also great to hear live. Beautiful song.
All in all a very good concert. So if you get the chance, go see him live. You will get a great band and some ass-kicking guitar playing. After all, it's not every day you have the chance to see a living legend live...
The concert turned out to be pretty much as I expected. Lots of solos and also a good band performance. Yngwie has a tendency to repeat some of his solo-parts a bit too much. I guess this is very hard to avoid when you improvise each and every solo. This means that even as a guitarist it can get too much with an extremely long solo. But then sometimes during the concert just when I thought I had figured him out, he would play something that really sounded different and I went "Wow, I didn't know he could play like that!". I guess he still has some tricks up in his sleeves... I believe that everybody left the concert place with a feeling of having seen some ass-kicking guitar playing. Something you don't see that often anymore. The only thing that bothers me about this evening is that I didn't get one of his guitar picks... :)
I'm not sure the setlist is in the right order but I think I got most of the songs he played.
Setlist:
Rise Up
Ship of Fools
Stronghold
Yngwie solo
Keyboard solo
Bass solo
Drum solo
Trilogy Suite op. 3
Dreaming
Razor Eater
In the Name of God
Demon's Eye (Deep Purple)
Red House (Jimi Hendrix)
Baroque & Roll
You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget
Valhalla
encore:
Far Beyond the Sun
Burn (Deep Purple)
I'm a Viking
Rising Force
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All pictures taken by Michael | Written by Tajs
Sunday, April 13, 2003 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by yoni (Anonymous) - Monday, April 14, 2003 | very well written tajs.
It's funny how seeing Yngwie is normal for you and everything was 'as you expected'.
I on the other hand havn't ever seen Yngwie play live, so i think i would not have been as observant and controlled as you sound like you were.
I liked this live review, it made me feel like i was there. Good Job!
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| Comment by Soeren (Anonymous) - Monday, April 14, 2003 | Great written, great guitarist, and a great drummer. I think the drummer had listen to Carmine Appici from Vanilla Fudge (listen to Break Song from the album Near The Beginning). Tajs, you failed about the age off the people in the back, I´m 51.
Keep on the good work.
Soeren
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| Comment by Tajs (Anonymous) - Monday, April 14, 2003 | Well, I have been listening to Yngwie for a long time now. I have also seen his Live! dvd which probably gave me a good idea of what to expect...
I knew I had to write a review of the show so that made me think "What am I going to write about this" a lot of the time. I can't make up my mind about if this was a good thing for my own personal experience of the show... :)
And Soeren, I guess his audience is even more diverse than I thought ;)
Thanx fo the nice words!
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| Comment by Anders (Anonymous) - Monday, April 14, 2003 | Nice review Tajs, and an extraordinary concert. I was very impressed with Yngwie's masterful playing - he is indeed a great guitar virtuoso. Also the other band members were good, and they played some excellent solos.
I have only heard Yngwie's latest album "Attack", but I guess I'll have to check the old ones out as well after this.
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| Comment by Ewert (Anonymous) - Thursday, April 17, 2003 | You haven't seen him much then...he writes the guitar throws into the song... they're planned. The 'mistakes' you think you hear are not mistakes, every thing you hear is intended. Live, every one has always gotten to shred... where you have you all been? remember Mike Vescera? and Goran Edman? and Barry Sparks?
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| Comment by Morten (Anonymous) - Monday, April 21, 2003 | I was there too, and what an amazing concert!! Yngwie was indeed ready and willing to give a show!!! The great turn out in a rather small club probaly had something to do with it, but the fact that his last two gig's in Germany had been canceled, probaly gave him some extra energy?!!
I too was vert happy that he played a bit from "Concerto", and I was lucky enough to cathc a pic, thrown during "Wiking"!!! Whatta night!!!!!!!!!!
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