Well, I got the thing last week and have been watching it for all that time. I think the whole package is pretty great (especially considering it's cheaper than most regular cds you'll find in most regular cd stores these days). Vai is awesome as always, as is his guitar sound - again, as always. Satriani is always fun to see or hear, and Malmsteen is the icing on the cake.
I don't want to fire up a Malmsteen debate, but about his performance (on the DVD at least) I guess I can say I find him awesome at some points and quite sloppy at others. In Baroque & Roll for instance he's flawless and very tight - no high kicks or anything either. On the older songs though he tends to improvise, often badly or in a lacklustre way, unfortunately. He throws his guitar around when he should be playing, he plays out of rhythm sometimes, etc... I think he gives the impression there of just not really caring much anymore, doing high kicks and running up and down the fretboard aimlessly.
It's true, he just doesn't have anything to prove anymore, as a player, and it's unfortunate that he didn't start focussing on things like composition over the years and instead chose to follow the same formulas over and over. I think Blackmore once said about him, when he was just starting out, that he was an amazing talent but would probably start putting together truly impressive music when he got a little older and became more at ease. It doesn't seem like that's happened yet, somehow. He's a fantastic player, but I think one of the reasons why his performance suffers these days is because he hasn't kept things interesting for himself. He does indeed fall back on the same kind of licks or patterns a lot, while in the jam he proves he can do other things as well. I'm very pleased with his performance in the jam actually, it shows he's very much at home in classic rock and Hendrix especially - even though even there he often goes into the same shred routines again and again. It's almost like he can't contain himself, like he's still in that phase where he feels he has to shred constantly to impress. Vai for instance does all kinds of different things, from shredding to cross-string tapping to playing bluesy licks or going crazy with his tremolo.
Yngwie's very accurate and sounds great in the jam though, that's for sure. As an old Hendrix fan I especially enjoy the way he plays in Voodoo Chile; he even has that typical Hendrix sound there. It was a surprise too to hear him sing. Who'd have thought he had such a deep, rumbling blues rock voice?
I'm also a bit miffed no-one mentioned he smashes his guitar on the stage. He does a might fine job there too, I mean he smashes it in half along the length. Definitely one of the highlights on the DVD
One thing that did disappoint me was the fret-cam feature, which is pretty useless imo. I assumed they'd attached little cameras to the guitar necks, as the name sort of implies, but it's just a regular camera view that remains focussed on the guitar. It's also not wholly different from the way the rest of the DVD's filmed. Still, this release gets a big thumbs up from me. I just wish there was a video from when they had Petrucci on.
