The Z Files

Monday saw the return to Buffalo of one of the greatest guitarists in rock, but with a new twist. Steve Vai put his usual touring band, The Breed, on hiatus and formed the new String Theories Band. Because this tour is in support of the live orchestral Sound Theories album, Vai took this opportunity to go in a different direction, adding violinists Alex DePue and Ann Marie Calhoun to the band, along with new bassist Bryan Beller and Breed holdovers Dave Weiner (second guitar) and Jeremy Colson (drums). As usual, I had avoided all news about the tour. I knew nothing more than that Vai was touring with violinists. It made for some nice surprises.

The opening act was Zack Wiesinger. Normally, he plays a solo acoustic set. For this show, though, he was in band form with Guitar Zack and No Slack. He gave an interesting performance of quirky blues-based rock with side-splitting lyrics in the vein of Frank Zappa.

Vai was in fine form, tearing through nearly twenty compositions with his usual flair for the extravagant. This show seemed less self-indulgent than other Vai performances, which certainly had something to do with the new band. The violinists were an awesome addition, adding a new layer of sound and opening the door to new arrangements like in “For the Love of God,” which featured a violin intro similar to Tony MacAlpine’s keyboard intro from recent years.

The show had its unique moments, from the failure of Vai’s wireless unit that prompted him to actually stop the band midway through “Firewall,” through the Silly String assault on birthday boy Dave Weiner and a roadie who had the misfortune of sharing Dave’s birthday. I wasn’t going to try picking highlights because the entire show was at such a high level, but I was very happy to hear “Oooo,” “Firewall,” “Freak Show Excess” and “All About Eve.”

Vai showed on Monday that not only is he at the top of his game as a guitarist, but that his musicianship in general is better than ever. He’s truly one-of-a-kind, a fact cemented by his live show.

Photos (contrary to Vai policy, as I found out after the show) at Flickr, setlist after the jump.

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I was really pumped up to see Sonata last night at Peabody’s in Cleveland. I saw them once before, in Toronto on their first North American tour in April 2005. I didn’t know their music at the time, and that show was what made me a fan. In a way, this was a little like seeing them for the first time because I didn’t know the songs last time.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Gravity open the show. They were the local opener when I saw Kamelot last year, and they were even better this time than last year. Great bombastic instrumental prog-metal. I recommend these guys.

The touring opener, The Agonist, was less impressive. They’re just another extreme metal band, but with a female aggro vocalist. A girl near me in the crowd referred to her as a “razor-eating bitch.” They were OK, but nothing special. I was particularly unimpressed by the guitars, as they sounded like a flock of mosquitoes. I couldn’t make out one note of the leads played by the guitarist directly in front of me. No big loss, though.

Sonata were on their game. Tony’s pipes were in top form, hitting all the high notes. The new guitarist, Elias, blew me away. I was sad to see Jani go, but Elias is at least as much a showman and his chops are better than Jani’s. I was particularly happy to see him playing through a Mesa amp rig that sounded very similar to mine. My only real complaint about the show is the sound, as it was hard to hear Henrik’s synth parts at times. The energy was good, and Tony looked like he was having a blast. The setlist was no surprise, as they’ve been playing the same selections at every show. The choices were good, but not perfect. I would have preferred some different song choices from the new album, Unia, especially. ‘In Black and White” isn’t nearly as good an opener as “Misplaced” was on the Reckoning Night tour, and I just don’t care much for “Paid in Full.; I would have loved to hear “The Harvest” and/or “Out in the Fields,” which is actually the bonus track on Unia. (I wonder what it means when the bonus track is my favorite?) Sonata will return early next year. Only West Coast dates have been announced thus far, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some eastern dates.

Photos at Flickr, setlist after the jump…

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I didn’t quite know what to expect going into last night’s Epica show. I had never been to Funhaus before, and I thought that 6:30 was pretty early to open the doors for a metal show. The venue itself is a hole. I played many better stages with Lurid. This particular one’s low ceiling reminded me of a bar in Lackawanna that I played a couple times. There was no security to speak of once inside, and I was right against the stage. I spent half the show leaning against the stage-right floor monitor.

There was a local opener, Apparatus. They didn’t bring much of anything new to the table and their music had a mainstream vibe not unlike Evanescence or Lacuna Coil. (Not that that’s a bad thing, just not really my thing.) They were still enjoyable, and I plan to check them out further.

The touring support band, Visions of Atlantis, followed. Hailing from Austria, with the exception of American vocalist Melissa Ferlaak, they’re stylistically closer to Epica’s brand of symphonic metal. Their music isn’t as aggressive and they use male clean vocals equally with the female vocals. I hadn’t heard them before this show, but I plan to pick up some of their stuff.

Epica didn’t disappoint. I just wish they would have put more emphasis on the new material. They played as many songs from their first album, The Phantom Agony, as from The Divine Conspiracy. I really would have liked to hear any of the new songs in the “Embrace that Smothers” series, especially “Fools of Damnation.” That said, the songs from TDC that they did play were excellent. My biggest hope was that they wouldn’t play the title track, as it’s way too long and gets boring. At least that hope was realized. Their performance was excellent, maybe better than when I saw them last year in Cleveland.

This show was a great rebound from the disappointing Kamelot show a few weeks ago, and was one of the best small-club shows I’ve been to. It’s always nice when the headliners impress and I get turned on to a couple other good bands on top of it!

Photos at Flickr, setlist after the jump…

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I often use my iPod at work to break up the monotony. Imagine my disbelief when I pulled my prized bit of shiny Cupertino gadgetry from my backpack last night and discovered that it wouldn’t start up. I wrote it off to an accidental bump in the backpack that started it playing and ran the batteries out, so I went down to the gallery’s restaurant and borrowed their iPod charger. I plugged the iPod in and it wouldn’t get past an illuminated Apple logo. Putting it to my ear, I heard the hard drive clicking. (That’s usually a bad sign.) At that point, I was thanking my lucky stars that I bought AppleCare for it, as the standard warranty expired several months ago.

This afternoon, I scheduled a Genius Bar appointment for tomorrow. As a last resort before taking it in, I decided to hook it up to the computer again and try to run utilities on it. Interestingly enough, Disk Utility reported the drive to be OK. Sure enough, I unmounted the iPod and gave it a quick test, which it passed with flying colors.

Only at that point did I breathe a sigh of relief and cancel my slot at the Genius Bar.