The Attitude Song

It's been a busy concert week for me. Steve Vai on Friday, Bobo Stenson trio on Tuesday and Magnus Lindgren Quartet with the Malmö Opera Orchestra yesterday evening. I will deal with these concerts in three separate installments Here's the first one

Vai I have heard twice before. Once with G3 featuring Joe Satriani and Robert Fripp, and once with David Lee Roth back in the late 80's. The former gig was OK, the latter was great (apart from the fact that Roth let keyboardist Jesse Harms to all the singing Roth couldn't handle). This time the venue was appropriate - KB in Malmö, the band was hot (with one exception), the house was packed and the music was excellent.

I believe it helped that I went with a A who is a Vai enthusiast. A even owns an Ibanez 7-string JEM guitar (which Vai helped design). Having gone to loads of concerts on my own, I am usually not bothered about going on my own, but in this case I think A made a difference in a positive way.

While walking to KB we talked Vai, music and guitars. Fun!!! I got a bit of a flashback to my guitar freaked late teens. Not that I ever would like to be in my teens again, absolutely NOT, not even if I could. But there was more time to be a bit of a music nerd, more time to practise and I had several friends who shared this slightly introverted streak.

A and myself agreed that Passion and Warfare was Vai's greatest album so far, to a large extent because of the compositions. We also agreed that the Alcatraz album Disturbing the Peace is criminally underrated. Pity that they only released one album with Vai.

I am not going into details on the concert. Suffice it to say that I liked the high level of musicianship from Vai, Sheehan and MacAlpine, the well-planned visual stunts (Vai's finger lasers, the smoke appearing at the right places at the right time, the good time interaction between the band members), and the generous length of the show - more than 2 1/2 hours. Even if I would have loved Vai to have played more of his early material, I fully understand if he wants to go on and play his later stuff. He did play a handful of older songs, so I shouldn't complain really, should I?

What struck me at this concert, as many times before, was how unfair it is that the press in general refuse to appreciate the qualities of musicianship. It is OK to rave about athletes, football players or whatever and go on and on and on about how technically brilliant they are. So why do these values not transfer to music? It is a complex matter to go into, but Allan F. Moore's article in Popular Music a couple of years back touches on this matter: authenticity. If you play rock music of any kind, you will be judged by the level of your authenticity wheather you like it or not. A lot of the time it is more about if the music critics percieve you as authentic or not. If you are a rock musician that can play technically great, you are in trouble. Personally, I would like to hear more good musicians in rock. I am convinced that the music would be all the better for it. Partly it is an attitude problem on behalf of the many ignorant music critics that know little or close to nothing about music itself.

A big thanks to Raimond for putting me and A on the guest list. You're a great guy!


Unfortunately, Vai did not perform "The Attitude Song", my favourite Vai song. It was the first song by Steve Vai I ever heard, on a flexi single given away with with an issue of Guitar Player magazine back in 1983 or something. I was floored upon hearing it and listened to it repeatedly while reading Vai's accompanying transcription in the magazine. The wang bar antics, the chromaticism, the rhythmic subdivisions were all truly eye opening to a 16-year old Swedish guitarist. Shortly thereafter, I found the Flexable album at a record shop in Halmstad (Pet Sounds) and bought it immediately. There were more strange things going on on this record! Unbelievable!

NP: Buddy Miller - Midnight and Lonesome