Stillness in Motion: Vai Live in La

No matter how you cut it, Steve Vai is the consummate performer and whilst yes, he's not to everyone's tastes, you cannot but admire a technical musician at the top of his game with notes fired at a rate of knots or a single note held to soar to the very heavens, this man will always produce the goodies!Now as it happens, I like Mr Vai because he's always pushing the envelope, and while some of his more recent studio offerings have been more than just a touch sterile in the search for musical perfection - but here, in the setting that always shows any flaws in a musical armoury, many of those "sterile tunes/songs, suddenly gain an air of humanity and shine like you would never believe that they could!Recorded on the 49th date of a 50 date US tour in LA, this here little 2 CD set is technically brilliant from both a recording engineer's perspective as well as from Steve (and his incredibly gifted band members) and as I say, there is a nice mixture of old and new tunes - but then, with his back catalogue of tunes, he's always going to have something for everyone and clearly, his audience are truly enjoying the proceedings too!Personal favourites here are John The Revelator (a blues tune I never really figured would ever come from Mr Vai) along with Building The Church, The Animal, The Ultra Zone and For The Love Of God.If you are a Vai devotee, then this will be already sitting in your collection. But, if you are new to his music, then this may not necessarily be the best place to start, funnily enough - but for under a tenner, it's got to be worth a punt?

Excellent concert with great sound quality. Backed up by a superb band. Includes an amazing version of For the Love of God. Recommended for all guitar lovers!

class as usual.

It's Steve Vai, say no more.

Saw (of heard) this tour in Toronto. After True Illusions / Wild Things tour and both CDs, which were Vai and his then fellow musicians doing amazing things, I was hoping for more. Who cans two multi-instrumentalist violinists and brings in a harp? I mean, a frigging harp? Never have so many been so underwhelmed. The harp is just an index of how dull this CD is, and how repetitive of earlier work. Waste of my time and money.No wonder Vai has shut it down since. Guess he got old. His mentor Zappa never aged.