Steve Vai has always been considered to be in the pantheon of best guitar heroes that ever walked this earth and his loyal friends and fans honored his artistic personality by attending this concert with passion and warfare dedication! The fact that despite the heavy rain there were about 1700 people attending this concert proves the madness and the degree of dedication of people to this guitar wizard and his company!
Eric Sardinas and his band did a fucking awesomely devastating job by warming up the audience with their alligator type of over extremely heavy blues based infernal Rock 'n' roll! This man simply dominates. Eric and his band played with passion and warmth and very easily managed to conquer the Greek audience! Apart from his guitar he also played with fire, beer bottles but most of all everything came from the depths of his heart!
So, after Eric went down to start boozing up, Steve Vai and his band Breed really started to rip our souls and minds apart! The Breed consists of Steve Vai on guitars & vocals, Tony Mcalpine on guitars & keyboards, Dave Weiner on guitar, Billy Sheehan handling the bass guitar and Jeremy Colson on drums. Steve Vai supported his latest release, "Real Illusions: Part 1 - Reflections" by playing the majority of the songs from this album ("Building The Church", "Glorious", "K'm-Pee-Du-Wee", "Freak Show Excess", "Lotus Feet"). I must confess that some of his songs really sound more vivid when played out live instead of the CD!
All of the musicians were in a really funny mood, very eager to play and conquer the Athenian crowd. Steve proved that he is a really open minded musician by letting all the members of his band play their solos in their own style and personality! Maybe Yngwie should have taken some attitude lessons from Steve! We must definitely mention here the fact that drummer Jeremy Colson played with Steve's back as well as the floor when he performed his unique drum solo!
When Billy Sheehan came out on stage, everybody was surprised not only by his tremendously extraterrestrial playing but also by the fact that he was about 2 meters tall. I think that this was probably an "over 2 meters concert" in general since Steve, Eric and Bill are really tall guys apart from being exceptional musicians!
The highlighted parts of this concert can be condensed were: the "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your mama" jamming with all the band members, "Whispering A Prayer" by performing it with such a warm from the depths of his heart and of course the closing track "For The Love Of God" which really made everybody shiver! On the whole I can easily say that Stevie, the Breed and Eric Sardinas' band are truly gifted, inspired persons, they play with all their lovin', they are really genuine and kind artists - plus they offer the audience a really special kind of entertainment!
The stage was occasionally bathed by fantastic lights which really added to the whole scenery! Steve himself was in a really good mood – he was smiling at all times to the audience, taking the video camera from his road crew and shooting some scenes on his own!
Steve and his band played for 3 hours and he would have played more if the time limit had not been over-exceeded!!! Well, Stevie, until the next time you pay us a visit or until your next album "Real Illusions: Part 2", we hope that you will remain a fantastic person and gifted artist and that you will warm up our hearts and ears again soon enough!
Here's a small part of the setlist, in no particular order (of course all the improvisations and solos are not included here!):
01. Building The Church
02. Glorious
03. K'm-Pee-Du-Wee
04. Freak Show Excess
05. Lotus Feet
06. Sisters
07. For The Love Of God
08.The Crying Machine
09. Whispering A Prayer
10. My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama
