Steve Vai - Live at the Astoria London

Customer Reviews:

Killer Disc!.......2007-04-05

There are some complaints about too many visual effects? So close you eyes and listen to over two hours of brilliantly performed music! Steve Vai and his band is one of the best things out there for guitar freaks!
WOW!

Awesome!.......2007-02-28

Excellent video of an excellent band, starring the incredible Steve Vai.
Can learn a lot from watching carefully!

Exceptional.......2007-01-23

I have been a Steve Vai fan for 20 years but the only times I saw him playing were in video clips, which cannot represent well what a musician like him is capable of.

I bought this DVD and before having a chance to watching it, I read all the comments here. It has scared me the comments about bad edits, as I thought they would be as bad as the ones made by Mike Portnoy for the "Scenes From A Memory" DVD.

However, this is not the fact. The camera does not focus totally on the Steve's fingers but we can see most of his playing well enough.

Despite the critics that might be applied to the edition, we have a super group playing live. This single fact would make the DVD interesting, but Billy Sheehan, MacAlpine and Donnati just add their own light to the Steves songs. I personally liked how Sheehan played the songs from "Passion And Warfare" ( which had Stuart Hamm originally on bass ) and the incredible and insanne shredding from MacAlpine as well as the three guitar parts and the bass and guitar doubles.

Of course I miss a few songs, but overall this is a must for Steve Vai fans. Be aware that if you dislike shredding and soloing this might not appeal to you as this is present here in the huge doses. In fact, this is a great piece of art if that is what you are looking for.

Mmmhhh... too many effects for my taste..........2007-01-02

I would like to state that Steve Vai in my opinion is one of the greatest guitar players I've seen, also it is a shame how bad he skills when it comes to creating music. For the love of God (included on this DVD), Tender surrender (not included) and I would love to (not included) are the only songs I actually like to hear.
Anyway this DVD is not such a good purchase not because Steve's performance but because of the annoying effects. The camera is moving all the time switching between the drums, bass, keyboard and Steve. It was more like watching my young kid playing with a video camera instead of a professional recording.
I give it 3 stars because I really like seeing Steve playing guitars but for the rest it is not worth it.

Must See DVD.......2006-12-22

This is just great, great music that's masterfully performed by some of the best rock musicians alive. Vai is among the rock gods of guitar, as is Tony Macalpine, never mind his keyboard skills. Sheehan is amazing on bass, and Virgil Donati is probably the best drummer I've ever seen, bar none.

Song selection is key here, and Vai really picks a great set... he won some major award for his performance on this DVD of "Whispering a Prayer" (and by the way - the performance on "Alive in an Ultra World" is even better, although that's only CD, not DVD). There is plenty of madly insane shredding, guitar wars between Vai and Macalpine and/or Vai and Sheehan, a knock-out drum solo by Donati; a keyboard solo by Macalpine that unfortunately isn't up to snuff... I have an old tape by him where he rampages through some classical piano piece and I would've preferred him to just play that, rather than show off the various effects he can utilize. Anyway - but none of us purchased this for the keyboard solo anyway! Even the Hendrix cover tunes "Fire" and "Little Wing" come across as respectful and beautiful (although once again, his "Little Wing" rendition here has a tidge too much delay... sounds better on one of his G3 performances).

Overall, to wrap up: just watch "Fire Garden Suite" and game's over: that alone is worth the price of this DVD... the rest is gravy. EASILY a 5-star review!

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