Yngwie Malmsteen – Powerstation

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11Swedish guitar shredder Yngwie Malmsteen posed and preened his way through a thunderous set of generic metal tunes…using a wall of Marshall amps as his backdrop.

It was certainly an impressive sight…a wall of Marshall stacks lined up to cover most of the Powerstation stage and towering at about 8 feet. I felt bad for the band…between the amps and Malmsteen’s massive ego…there was barely any room for the three accompanying musicians with the drummer, bassist and keyboard player crammed into the corner as “The Maestro” took up most of the stage area.

Every rock god cliché was on display. There was plenty of fog as Yngwie took the stage. He struck more poses than Madonna, flicking guitar picks into the audience constantly.

My favourite “performance” was the hapless roadie who appeared on stage after every other song to attach another strip of picks to the guitarist’s mic stand.

Keyboard player Nick Marino took on most of the vocal duties, sounding like he was auditioning for an Iron Maiden cover band. Bass player Ralph Ciavolino served as the master of ceremonies, telling the crowd, “The maestro is here for you” and letting us know that we were in the presence of “The world’s greatest guitar player”.

It all made for great theatre, but not for great music.

The volume was just on the edge of bearable, but really, after the first two or three numbers there was nothing much to hear anyway…each “tune” such as it was, served as just another vehicle for The Maestro to show off his chops.

Sure, he could play fast, but ultimately, he had nothing to say musically, except, “Look at me!”

I left after about 45 minutes, saving my hearing for another day.

Marty Duda

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Marty Duda
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