I don’t know if anyone else caught Steve Vai in concert lastmight on VH1 Classic’s All Request. Great show for guitar fans, and not only because of Vai.
Vai’s former bandmate from David Lee Roth’s band, bass great Billy Sheehan, was on hand. There were also two other guitarists sharing the stage, one of whom got a surprising amount of face time.
The guitarist to Vai’s left was named David. During some fill-in patter, Vai told the audience that david was 20 years old.
Vai did not not talk about the guitarist to his right while I was watching (I missed about half the show). This guy was an African-American guitarist who was well capable of matching Vai lick for lick. Both the A-A guy and Vai played center stage for much of the show.
The A-A guy was fast. The only A-A guitarist I can think of off the top of my head who plays that fast is Vernon Reid (ex-Living Colour). But the guy on Vai’s show wasn’t Reid – he looked vaguely like a skinny, clean-shaven Darius Rucker.
This show was probably taped within the last 3 or 4 years, as Vai makes a joke to the audience about playing some Britney Spears (his band plays the opening of “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire”, then Vai asks the audience if they were expecting a Britney tune).
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So did/has anyone else seen this show, and does anyone know who the other guitarists were playing with Vai? I thought it might have been one of the G3 shows, but Joe Satriani wasn’t there.