Tag: Yngwie Malmsteen

SubscribeStar Saturday: Yngwie Malmsteen Concert

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Last week I rode up to Silverado’s in Black Mountain, North Carolina, with my younger brother and his wife to hear Swedish neoclassical metal guitar god Yngwie Malmsteen.

Boy, it was an amazing concert.  He even played some Mozart!  Yngwie also played one of my personal favorites, “Albinoni’s Adagio“:

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a full-fledged rock ‘n’ roll concert, and Yngwie delivered for a solid ninety minutes of neoclassical decadence.

This post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Rock in Peace, Eddie Van Halen

The Portly Politico6 Comments

It is with a heavy heart that we bid a fond farewell to the Mozart of our time, Eddie Van Halen.  Van Halen passed away after a lengthy struggle with lung cancer.  He is survived by his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, and his son, Wolfgang Van Halen, who joined the band as its bassist in 2006.

Van Halen was truly one of the guitar greats of the twentieth century, the second half of which witnessed the rise of many guitar heroes to the pinnacles of superstardom, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.

But Van Halen’s licks didn’t stop with memorable riffs.  He could play neoclassical passages with ease, weaving them into songs about partying and and lusting after one’s teacher.  Learning his signature solo, “Eruption,” became a rite of passage for budding guitarists in the 1980s and beyond.  Van Halen also dominated on the keyboards—much to the chagrin of perennial showman David Lee Roth—as is clear from the entire album 1984, one of the best albums of all time.  Who can resist jumping when hearing the opening strains of “Jump“?

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