Yngwie Malmsteen brings 'Guitar Gods' tour to North America

Uli Jon Roth, Gary Hoey, Bumblefoot on the bill

Yngwie Malmsteen

Deities worthy of worship for their six-string wizardry, the "Guitar Gods" are coming to North America, with the "Paganini of heavy metal," Yngwie Malmsteen, headlining.

Known far and wide as the king of neoclassical shred guitar, Malmsteen will be joined by Uli Jon Roth (Scorpions, Electric Sun), Gary Hoey ("Hocus Pocus") and Bumblefoot (Guns N' Rose) on the first-ever "Guitar Gods" festival tour. Each show will also feature surprise guests. See a YouTube presentation here:

The tour was created and organized by April Malmsteen, Yngwie's wife and manager, and will be storming stages in partnership with Guitar Center, presenting six-plus hours of guitar fireworks displays that are sure to shock and awe.

She talked about what the tour means to her.

"Being able to put together this festival has been a lifelong dream of mine," said April. "I sincerely believe that 'Guitar Gods' will bring tremendous value and enjoyment to not only the guitar and heavy metal enthusiast, but also to anyone who loves music."

Malmsteen's most recent solo album, Spellbound, and his new autobiography, "Relentless: A Memoir," are both available now. Furthermore, the Yngwie Malmsteen premium artist signature series by Fender is also now available, featuring a full line of Malmsteen-endorsed accessories such as guitar strings, instrument cables, gig bags, electronic tuners and more. He was also recently profiled on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday.  

His career going on three decades now, Malmsteen is a Grammy-nominated guitar icon, whose technical brilliance and incredible speed have left audiences speechless. The first guitarist tohave his own Fender signature guitar model, Malmsteen is the world's pre-eminent practitioner of "shred guitar" and "neo classical" music and was named by Time magazine as one of the "Top Ten Electric Guitar Players."

Roth, of course, is another legendary guitarists, who intends on bringing the very special 40th Anniversary Scorpions set he's been playing to audiences from Europe to North America. Hoey will perform his radio hits, including the Billboard Top 5 smash "Hocus Pocus," while Bumblefoot, best known for his work with Guns N' Roses, is doing his first solo tour.

Here are the dates for Yngwie Malmsteen/Guitar Gods North American tour 2014:

June

13 Huntington, NY Paramount Theatre

14 Sayreville, NJ Starland Ballroom

17 Englewood, NJ Bergen Performing Arts Center

20 St. Charles, Ill. Arcada Theatre

21 Toronto, ON Phoenix Theatre

26 Seattle, WA Showbox Theatre

27 Portland, OR Roseland Theater

July

3 Beverly Hills, CA Saban Theatre

8 Tucson, AZ Rialto Theatre

For more information, visit www.yngwiemalmsteen.com.

CD Review: Lita Ford - "Living like a Runaway"

CD Review: Lita Ford – “Living like a Runaway”

SPV/Steamhammer

All Access Review: B+

Lita Ford - Living like a Runaway 2012

The recent upheaval in Lita Ford’s personal life certainly has tongues wagging. And while gossipy fishwives may prattle on about the details of her messy divorce from Jim Gillette, former singer for the glam-metal dandies Nitro and a one-time Ford collaborator, the rest of the metal community better not sleep on what is undoubtedly the most personal record of her career, Living like a Runaway.

Coming off 2009’s delightfully sinful, and uncharacteristically heavy, Wicked Wonderland, Ford casts aside the S&M trappings and sexual bravado of that record to unburden the heavy emotional baggage she’s obviously been carrying around for way too long. Living like a Runaway is the best kind of therapy, comprised of some of the strongest and most daring material of her career. Nowhere to be found is the cute, cuddly pop-metal of her breakout 1980s hit “Kiss Me Deadly.” Instead, the defiant Ford – never a shrinking violet – works out her issues in a clutch of fierce, swaggering rockers like the blazing single “Branded” and its slithering, nastier cousins “Hate” and “The Mask” that, for all their righteous anger and seductively metallic grooves, still boast gripping hooks galore. Lighter and more introspective is the autobiographical title track, which features a nimble-fingered guitar lead and wistfully nostalgic lyrics that speak to Ford’s restless nature. And the soul-baring “Mother” is such a frank and affecting acoustically-sketched letter from Ford to her children that it’s almost hard to get through. But, it bears out, in stark detail, how the wounds of divorce heal so slowly.

The bandages are ripped off on Living like a Runaway, and yet for all its bluster and ballsy attitude, “Relentless” ought to have a chorus that isn’t so feathery and disappointingly lightweight. Still, for the most part, producer and co-conspirator Gary Hoey, Ford’s secret weapon, helps her stay focused on grinding out the kind of tough, meaty riffs and high-flying solos that make “Devil in My Head” such a brawling and candid exploration on the dual nature of man … or, in this case, woman. Though Ford can’t help dipping her toes in the somewhat clichéd and dated piece of ‘80s metal that is “Asylum,” its spandex-sporting kin “Love 2 Hate You” embeds wonderfully melodic hooks in a sparkling, yet bittersweet, chorus that serves to remind everyone that Ford still knows her way around a pop song.

In the past, Ford may have lived her life like a runaway, detached and isolated like a troubled young girl who’s left home and hasn’t a clue where to go or what to do next. Perhaps her time in the raw, adolescent punk girl group The Runaways was, in and of itself, a similarly confusing exile. Whatever the case, Ford, who’s been smashing her pretty blonde head against heavy metal’s glass ceiling for years, has turned her present inner turmoil outward and it fuels some of the edgiest, most provocative music she’s ever produced.

-            Peter Lindblad