So I went to see Generation Axe this weekend. The line up was
Steve Vai
Yngwie Malmsteen
Zakk Wylde
Nuno Bettencourt
Tosin Abasi
It was a good show though a bit surprising.
Nuno rocked. He was on (not surprising, he is a stellar player) and sang a song or two. Tasteful, clean, and when needed, blazingly fast.
Tosin, well, the guy is an awesome player. However it really isn’t my thing. He did do some amazing slap stuff though. I can’t stress enough how good this guy is though it doesn’t really float my boat.
Yngwie. Yngwie was Yngwie. Played well but it was Yngwie being Yngwie. Throwing guitars off stage. Doing his whole schtick. Throwing another guitar off stage. And again.
Zakk. Man, Zakk apparently now really likes playing fast. All the time. Well, an occasional bend. Like 98 bars of 32nds, bend, another 98 bars of 32nds. I was rather disappointed. When he slowed down a bit it was awesome and he sings quite well but the solos were a bit much. And I say that as a guy who likes speedy players. Zakk can, when he choose to, play tasty stuff. At the show he decided to see how many notes he could play. When he slowed down and actually went for melody it was awesome. The problem was those moments were seperated by like 98 bars of wanking.
Steve Vai. Well, Steve was Steve. He is an amazing player but I never really got into his stuff. He, as always, plays amazingly well. And the jams with him and other players were awesome. Also the end mass jam was way cool.
Nuno by far was the most interesting part of the show.
Note to Steve (like he is ever gonna read this): You really don’t have to crank up the volume. Really. The volume kept going up through out the show and by the time you were up it was a giant wall of sound and almost impossible to hear clearly what was going on. And I had earplugs. This is the second time I’ve seen you in the past couple years and the second time I walked out deaf.
Slee