I remember when "Passion and Warfare" came out. As a young guitar player I listened to that album and bought the officially licensed tab that apparently Vai helped to transcribe. Back then, there were not that many guitar players that could sit on the porch with someone like Steve Vai. The playing was so out there, that we just had no idea how he was making that music. Today over 30 years have past, and the album still stands up as one of the best instrumental guitar albums ever. Who would have ever thought that a guitar player would get signed to a major label deal to do an instrumental album. There are only a small handful of guitarists that have pulled this off. Back then, Steve's playing was at the pinnacle of technical playing. There were a couple of other guitar players out there doing some things that seemed out of this world, but it never seemed like anything was out of Vai's reach technically.
Fast forward to today, and it seems like every Tom, Dick, and Harriet can not only shred Steve Vai, but they can put their own spin on things and take it a notch above Steve from a technicality stand point. We will never know if Steve can pull of some of the crazy Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, Yngwie Malmsteen stuff because he just doesn't play that way. It seems like he could pull off all of the crazy sweep arpeggio stuff, but he never goes into a solid sweep fest with any of his music. When it comes to modern guitarists, I think folks like Tosin Abasi are doing things that maybe Steve doesn't concentrate on, and maybe are outside of Steve's capability. It's hard to know all of his technical abilities because it does not seem like his focus now.
I will say that Steve has everyone beat as far as how expressive everything that he plays is. Steve seems to milk every ounce of expression out of every single note. While he is a virtuoso, there are guitar players now that really make Steve look tame on the technical side. Watching this performance just shows how expressive he really is. You can see that he feels every note and tries to wrench everything that he can out of each note. I have always loved this about his style and the way that he uses bursts of speed never seem to be an exhibition of skill. Steve seems to be getting better and it is crazy because he is getting up there in age.
I met Steve for my 40th birthday here in New Orleans. Steve played a show and my lovely wife bought me tickets on my birthday. I never push the issue about meeting artists, but my wife is. Steve's bus was parked on Canal St at the Joy Theatre and my wife said "let's wait here, he has to come out here eventually". Glad I listened to the wife because he did come out and spend about an hour and a half talking to me and about a dozen guitar nerds like me. He signed a couple guitars, and whatever else anyone had on hand. He was so gracious and hung out talking about guitars for awhile. If you have never shook Steve's hand, you have no idea how freakishly big Steve's hand are. I am about an inch shorter than Steve, but his hand almost wrapped completely around mine. Just goes to show you that sometimes, it 's genetics meeting dedication. I'm glad to see that Steve is better than ever and I am happy that Steve takes care of himself so that we enjoy many years to come from his music.
