Shred and bleed if you please.  Instrumental music gets no quarter at radio save the occasional Classic Rock station so if seeing three of the worlds most renown guitar shredders doing their thing sans the limitations of a singer and conventional song structure is your thing then G3 is like your Christmas.  And the presents were particularly good this year indeed.

    Of course Yngwie Malmsteen was the oddest man out for this years guitar-fest with his lean far more toward the  classical than either Vai or Satriani who prefer a Jazz-fusion approach to their picking.  Odd?  Perhaps but easily the most exciting performer to watch this night.  Ole’ Ludwig Von Malmsteen simply boiled from introduction to exit and save a bit of Blues warble made the audience forget that there should have been a singer center stage.  Blindingly fast but exultingly emotive chords rained for a full 45 minutes leaving the quarter full house chanting "Yng-Va, Yng- Va, Yng- Va."  Glorious sight and sound for such a left of center concept as G3 and totally unheard of on previous G3 treks without Malmsteen.  By Malmsteen’s exit the only disappointment was that, though he teased at it, no tribute to Ritchie Blackmore ever came from the only fingertips that could handle the Man in Black’s musings.

   Second to center stage was Steve Vai who chose to sit with his custom three-neck guitar to introduce his set with an extended and extremely sedate solo piece.  A different feel altogether from just a few minutes earlier with not a hint of shred to be heard.  What started as a mood killer turned out to be Vai simply laying a sonic foundation to explore the furthest extremes of his instrument.  From the moment Vai rose from his chair to kick it in with his band he turned ears inside out with guitar origami so intricate and beautiful that it would have been fair to question if it was live or Memorex.  And the band, well Vai spent well on this bunch incorporating former David Lee Roth band mate and bassist Billy Sheehan, fellow Axe-master Tony MacAlpine along with a third guitarist, Dave Weiner, for a guitar wall that would crumble any modern day Jericho.

   Joe Satriani obviously intended to lay all to waste with his performance from the outset but was beset by technical problems including the total loss of his drummer’s sound.  Of course Satriani recovered and continued on after an impromptu blues walk, "The waiting for the drummer Blues" as Satch referred to the number, but the momentum was, unfortunately, completely lost and all in the hall looked forward to the "jam" portion of the show.

    With Satriani and band remaining on-stage Malmsteen and Vai returned to run at some guitar oriented covers, Hendrix, ZZ Top, etc.  Each proceeded to stab and jab at, with and around one another for a further half hour ultimately producing the most fitting closure to the night, a complete guitar blowout that the crew is probably still trying to fix.

     G3 was a great idea from inception but for me tended to fold into a bore on previous outings.  With the addition of Malmsteen a brighter balance seems to have been had that should provide for the guitar brigade’s continued growth.

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