Yngwie is the master of the guitar. His shows in Ventura are not to be missed. Paying the extra $10 for the VIP ticket is definitely the way to go. You can’t really put a price on being that close to such greatness, so it’s a true bargain.
His band was great. He had a keyboardist and bass player handling vocal duties and dialog between songs. The drum solo absolutely killed. One of the best parts of the show was watching all the people in the front staring towards the ground half the show hoping to find a souvenir guitar pick. Yngwie must throw, kick and toss a few hundred out to the crowd each show.
Seeing his commanding performance on the guitar is something every guitarist owes to themselves to experience at least one time. His brilliance is undeniable.
Here are a few samples of the guitar wizardry over the course of his set:
Set List:
Rising Force Never Die Spellbound Overture From A Thousand Cuts Arpeggios From Hell Crown of Thorns Badiniere Adagio (Niccolò Paganini cover) Far Beyond the Sun Dreaming Gates of Babylon (Rainbow cover) Into Valhalla Baroque & Roll Masquerade Trilogy Suite Blue Fugue Drum Solo Heaven Tonight Encore: Black Star I’ll See the Light Tonight
40 years ago this week (on May 5,1973), Led Zeppelin played an incredible set at Tampa Stadium. This show broke all previous attendance records for North America.
40 years and 6 days later, The Moby Dicks set out to recreate this concert in its entirety, as the Hammer of the Gods descended down on The Viper Room.
Mostly known for being the house band for the BONZO BASH (where, in each event, many drumming greats join the band to play their favorite Led Zeppelin songs), the band is comprised of guitarist Brent Woods, who has also played with Vince Neil , Sebastian Bach and a whole host of other bands and musicians, vocalist
Prior to the show, James, Brian and Chas took part in an interview with Metal 4 Breakfast promoter, Toddie B. They spoke of an upcoming residency at The Viper Room where they will do more complete set lists from historic Led Zeppelin shows.
These guys were jamming. Chas nailed all the vocal parts and nuances of Robert Plant, Brent Woods covered all the intricacies of Jimmy Page’s playing, from the violin bow to the theremin, James LoMenzo did a phenomenal job holding down the low end with his excellent bass playing and Steven LeBlanc’s keyboard wizardry was not to be denied.
And Brian Tichy, channeling the spirit of Bonzo, played with an unmatched ferocity as he literally pummeled the drums all evening and did an incredible solo sans drum sticks during “Moby Dick”. He was truly on fire. While sharing guitar duties with Brent Woods, the duo were all smiles and you could tell how much they were enjoying playing at the show.
After an exhausting drum solo, Brian Tichy took a break from the kit and The Moby Dicks were joined by occasional Moby Dick member Frankie Banali for a few songs. In all likelihood, Frankie is probably the ONLY person that was in attendance at both this event and the very same 1973 show at Tampa Stadium the band was paying tribute to. How cool and special is that?
During the more mellow parts of the show, Brent Woods sat on a 1977 Led Zeppelin tour barstool.
With Brian doing the Bonzo Bash at the end of the month in New York and then immediately touring for the month of June with Queensryche and Sass Jordan, expect the Moby Dicks to bring their act back to The Viper Room this summer.
It’s a good thing they didn’t do the Tampa show from 1977, where the band played 3 songs and then canceled the rest of the show due to inclement weather. That would have been a short set.
Setlist:
The Song Remains The Same, (The Rover intro) Sick Again, Nobody’s Fault But Mine.
I met Al Velasquez, Jr. at a concert/ improvisational performance by Terry Bozzio, Allan Holdsworth, Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto in Whittier, CA in January of 2010. All that talent and Terry’s monstrous drum kit barely fit up on that stage!
Al has been giving my friend’s son drum lessons for years. He brought along some of his students and Dean Zimmer. I had seen Dean play almost 20 years ago in Ventura at a Battle of the Bands. I just remembered that’s actually one of the first concert reviews I ever wrote. There were always great stories around town of the “Woodland Hills Drum Club”, of which he was a member.
Anyhow, I ended up getting to know Dean and Al that evening and we got to hang out backstage after the show. In additional to Al and Dean, there were many other incredible musicians in attendance. Being all excited, I took a bunch of horrible pictures on my 3G iPhone and that actually became my first “real” concert blog post.
I think Terry’s wife, Mayumi, took this picture
(I grabbed the above pic off of Al’s FB page – it’s better than any pic I got that evening-this is probably the best pic I got of the evening:
Over the last few years, I’ve come to know Al as a truly incredible musician and person. I have caught several of his performances with Heavy Mellow and he even gave my daughter a drum lesson once to get her going. His passion for making music and his commitment to developing his students’ drumming is just exceptional.
I see Dean around town quite often and have ran into him at a few shows.
We hung out after Y&T on Thursday night and when he told me he was playing a Thin Lizzy song at Al’s show at Pirates, I changed my weekend plans so my daughter and I could attend the event.
We got there right as Al was introducing the first song. I noticed a familiar face up onstage in Luis Villegas, who is one-half of the Heavy Mellow virtuoso guitar duo. I’d never seen Luis play electric guitar before, so that was cool
Photo by Gloria Villegas
Al’s first student jammed some Santana with the backing band, which included Al’s brother Michael on bass, with Clay Paschen and Dave Tingley sharing guitar and vocal duties.
Hearing young musicians play “Midnight Rider” by The Allman Brothers was great. That’s a wonderful song and their version was quite enjoyable. Given the ages of the drummers, the song selections were rather mature for their ages (and I don’t mean “mature” in an inappropriate way – I just didn’t think kids jammed to some of the songs I grew up on, so that was great to find out….)
As Al mentioned, most of the songs were classic rock in nature (Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, etc.), with a “heavy” song by Disturbed and a punk rock tune thrown in for good measure. My daughter and I really rocked out to the Van Halen tune.
6 above photos by Gloria Villegas
Along with his student on drums, Al performed “Jukebox Hero” twice on the keyboard. The family that came to watch the performance traveled from afar and missed when they originally played it, so later in the show, they did it again.
Al gave a very cool introduction of Dean just before the band tore into “The Boys are Back IN Town” by Thin Lizzy.
Seeing Dean play again after all these years sure was a cool experience. He totally rocked it.
Photo by Gloria Villegas
Other VIDEOS from the event:
This student of Al’s wowed the crowd with an exceptional version of an AFI song.
Photo by Gloria Villegas
I took pictures of Luis, who was taking pictures….
All of the students’ performances were excellent. There were so many proud parents and happy students that were all glowing as they each got off the stage.
Seeing songs performed by Al’s and Luis’ kids was a lot of fun. It was cool to look over and look at how happy they were from watching them play.
Al did a great job hosting and kept the event moving at an appropriate pace. The time flew by. It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon and it’s good to know that the next generation will keep rocking on.
I hope to see my kids up there someday… Maybe at the 12th or 13th annual event. Someday, for sure.
Luminol Drive Home The Pin Drop Postcard The Holy Drinker Deform to Form a Star Watchmaker Intro Video (Bass Communion song) The Watchmaker Index Sectarian Insurgentes Harmony Korine Raider II The Raven That Refused to Sing Encore: Radioactive Toy (Porcupine Tree song) Ljudet Innan (Storm Corrosion song)
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