Replies

I saw Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force live back in the 80s. He was a classically trained virtuoso and generated a lot of interest in his speed guitar playing, but I have to be honest that when the show was finally over I'd already wanted to leave about an hour earlier.

He was great all the way through the show if you really like his music, but we just couldn't stand being bombarded with ultra-speed 'Beedle-lee-beedle-beedle-lee-beedle-ah-YEEEEEEE!' Mozart riffs and Jeff Scott Soto's singing for more than about 30 mins. They were a pretty embarrassing Euro hair metal band too. Malmsteen is just awesome, but that band was still basically Ratt with lots more practice.

"I YAM A VII-YEE-KING! I'M GOING OUT TO WAAARR... I'VE GOT DEATH UP-ON MYY MIII-YEE-IINDD!!!" ... Ugh. When they were trying to get the crowd to sing along to that I looked at my pal Phil with a pained smile and yelled "Dude. Ready to jet?".

In the crowd exiting the concert, someone said "Yeah, man he's awesome and everything but I'm glad that's over" and people nearby busted out laughing.

But yes, respect to Yngwie Malmsteen is due, certainly.

I’m getting old. Now I can talk about Yngwie J. Malmsteen concerts with other Freepers.

I too went to a couple of his tour shows in the 80’s. At one that he headlined, he made us wait about 75 minutes to appear after his band was set to go. People were tired and angry. Same show he waited backstage 15 minutes before coming back for his encore.

I love his recorded music from Alcatraz and the first couple solo albums. But it didn’t translate to the stage performance in those days. Live he was a pompous ass and couldn’t really make his compositions sing like they did on the recording.

The interesting thing to me about all these posts is that we are naming guys from 30 and 40 years ago. It would appear the whole guitar god thing was an era in time that no longer exists.