Review:
'WILDHEARTS, THE / VAI, STEVE'
'London,ExCel Centre London Guitar Show,April 27-29'
- Genre: 'Rock'
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Our Rating:
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Guitar legend STEVE VAI can probably glide the entire length of a
fretboard in a matter of milliseconds.Unfortunately, it takes him a great deal longer to answer a question about technique.
Hundreds of axe-fans crammed into a curtained aircraft hangar at
London's ExCeL expecting to have their eyes melted by the speedy
shredder's fingers, scuttling along the neck like a spider fleeing a nest of Slayer nutters.
Instead, Steve purred and rambled through his London Guitar Show
masterclass like a Liberal Democrat leader thoughtfully fingering
through a bowl of Fox's Glacier Mints. What did they expect from the poor guy? When you walk onto a stage tocome face-to-face with an adoring mob, the last thing you want to be doing is answering questions about what guitar you'd bring to the moon.
Still, when he did get the chance to actually pick up a bleedin'
instrument, the man who dubbed himself "the most criticised guitar player in the world" ripped out enough licks to justify getting a horde of kids and shower-curtain haired roadies up before noon. And the former Frank Zappa virtuoso raised a chuckle with his tales ofhow his psychedelic band leader mocked his inability to performcomplex reggae 7/8 rhythms by observing that "Linda Ronstadt is looking for a guitarist".
Still, no one came here to natter. We came here to gawp at the latestin riffing technology, and to empty our wallets onto pick-laden standsbefore making off with a discounted signature guitar so crazy youcould get it to laugh at a series of Coupling.
But if you're interested in what Steve had to say about "nearly
perfect pitch" and the secret to light-speed playing, let me know. I've got it all written down.Anyone who's heard a Stereophonics album will be aware of the link between crap and guitars. But they'd probably not consider going as far as British Custom Guitar Ltd, who were showcasing an instrument made out of a Vietnam-issue bedpan. For £675, the showpiece could have been yours, unless you preferred the guitar which had been cruelly set alight with a flame-thrower and peppered with a 12-gauge shotgun. Presumably after it was used by Kelly Jones.
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Better still, you could follow the celestial choral hum to Guitar
Village's £7,000 Jimi Hendrix Psychedelic V, one of only 250 in
existence. That is, unless it was just in my head, in which case you could have used a stall map. Quite why a guitar with a whiskey logo slapped on it should be such a draw for me is a mystery. But I had to place my cheque book under a large anvil to avoid buying a Jack Daniel's Peavey acoustic guitar for just short of £350.
And if it wasn't for the intervention of the ghosts of Overdrafts
Past, Present and Future, this correspondent would have skipped off home with a Daisy Rock guitar designed for female guitarists - just because The Cure's Robert Smith had one.
Of course, anyone who'd got bored of being dragged away from stalls by frantic accountants could catch the wild hair-waving antics of The Wildhearts, the new-fangled stylings of The Automatic, or the deafening rock and roll riffs of The Hamsters in the main hall.
But with around 145 companies flouting their wares during the
three-day show, the London Guitar Show was a feast of dreams for the wannabe rock star. Never mind that I have the fingering technique of an old woman hitting a dog with a fistful of asparagus.
Give me a free Marshall carrier bag and ten minutes basking in the glow of peanut-butter-tanned Belgian riffer Wim Roelants and I can take on Nigel Tufnel. Just don't ask me about my technique.
Online photography portfolio
www.benbroomfield.com
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author: John Hill / Photos: Ben Broomfield
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Steve Vai looks for glacier mints
Steve Vai looks for glacier mints
Steve Vai looks for glacier mints
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