Saw The Guitar Collective Last Night

[Steve Haynie]

Being a big Alice Cooper fan I just had to see the solo tours of his band members this year.  Ryan Roxie played Atlanta.  Chuck Garric's band Beasto Blanco played Johnson City, Tennessee.  Last night Nita Strauss was doing her first ever solo tour as part of The Guitar Collective 2018.  They had just done a few shows in Florida before driving up to Spartanburg, South Carolina for the show.  The tour has a merchandise page to buy meet and greets, but no actual information page. 

The first band to play was a group of three teenagers from Charlotte called Osmium 76.  They chose that name because it is the heaviest metal in the periodic table of elements.  The must not know there is a band in Pennsylvania called Ozmium*76 that came up with the same clever name.  The band's bass player and singer is a girl named Abby whose parents allowed her to go to the show even though she and the guitar player had midterm exams the next day.  Black Sabbath, Mötley Crüe, Metallica, Scorpions, and System of a Down songs were played well, not always tight, though.  The 17 year old guitar player was doing solos note for note.  My guess is that he has taken advantage of all the resources available today to learn songs correctly.  I wish I could have played like that in high school. 

When Osmium 76 played Iron Maiden's The Trooper Nita Strauss grabbed her guitar, plugged in, and joined them on stage.  I could not hear Nita's guitar.  She let the band's guitar player do all the solos, not stepping on the band's performance.  They knew that Nita had once been with the Iron Maidens.  It was a cool moment for those kids.  It was cool for the audience that was there early, too! 

Next up was a band from Asheville, NC called Lifecurse.  The drummer had his drums stuffed with enough foam rubber to create a couple of mattresses.  Everything was muffled to let his drum sound come from triggers.  Two guys played guitar with modern heavy gain.  The bass player did some complicated looking stuff and sang back up vocals, sometimes taking the vocals into what was a verse or bridge or something that sounded like music.  The singer growled and screamed his way through songs.  If they just let the bass player do all the singing they would have vocals you could understand with melodies.  That band just wasn't my thing.  

Next up was part of the three touring artists in The Guitar Collective 2018.  Jacky Vincent has been in the band Falling In Reverse, but he does solo stuff, too.   There was no band on stage, just Jacky Vincent with a Dean Tele playing to tracks.  The guy shreds!  It sounds good, too, because his backing tracks sound like music.  He will be back through this area in March with Tony MacAlpine.  It will be worth seeing him again. 

Nita Strauss played next.  Her significant other played drums.  She had a bass player and another guitar player whose last name is Tarantino on stage.  The show was all music from her new solo album, Controlled Chaos, except for when she played Alice Cooper's I'm Eighteen.  The audience was asked to sing, and we did!  It was Nita's show, but the Tarantino guy was able to solo, too.  The whole point of the tour was to shred, shred, shred, and they did.  Even the backing parts required a lot of tapping.  Nita played her signature Ibanez Jiva guitars.  One had a custom inlay saying Hurricane on the neck. 

Angel Vivaldi was the closer.  He put together this tour as he has done in recent years.  At first hearing his music it seemed like everything was drums going takka takka takka in every song, but the more I listened it came together.  Seeing the live show, everything made musical sense.  Only three people were on stage, Angel Vivaldi, the Tarantino guy whose first name I must learn, and a drummer.  There was no bass player, and the band was playing along to tracks.   

Let's just get the big THUD out of the way.  Angel Vivaldi is a shredder's shredder.  He covered a Joe Satriani song with his own embellishments.  There were harmonized shred parts.  You could hear the chord changes in the shred licks.  Angel was born back when Mike Varney was giving us all the 80's shredders, and now he is on a mission to outplay them all. 

The guys is a showman, too.  Remember how Roy Clark would make a simple lick look hard, and a hard lick look simple?  Angel would play a lick with just his left hand while doing something else with his right just to show off, but he was involving the audience to make it fun.  He knows how to make his show visually interesting. 

After four hours with five bands the show was over.  The three Guitar Collective guitarists went to the merchandise stand to sign stuff and pose for photos.  It was a cool way to end the evening. 

One thing that I noticed was that after all that shredding I felt good.  After the last Dream Theater show I saw I felt exhausted from the musical information overload.  This Guitar Collective show had at least as many notes as a Dream Theater show, but with fewer people playing all those notes. 

There are only two shows left on the tour this year, but next year you shred heads ought to catch it. 

[polara]

I alway enjoy your reviews, even if I'm not so sure I'd be into that much shred. Thanks!

[cynic]

17 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

One had a custom inlay saying Hurricane on the neck. 

For the record, It's a sticker

Nita is great and can play her ass off, but I'm with Polara on the shred.  Her musical vocabulary is a bit too broad for my taste.

 

[princeofdarkness56]

Hard to find a hotter guitarist than Nita right now. She shows up all over the place. From all the guitar mags to the WWE events. Suppose to be super nice to everyone and respects her fans. She has chops for sure but the shred has lost some appeal for me over the years. For her Alice Cooper tenure I actually preferred Orionthi. She seemed to have a more blues rock basis which I thought fits Alice better. Either way, when either of those girls let loose with Alice’s two other guitarists and Chuck Garric on bass, there is some serious crunch going on. 

[Steve Haynie]

I agree that Orianthi was a better fit for Alice Cooper as far as her playing style went.  Nita Strauss acts more like a rock and roller.  If you did not hear either one playing, just watched them, Nita would be the one to appear more aggressive.  My preference in Alice Cooper's show is Nita Strauss. 

[princeofdarkness56]

I agree with that. Nita is a showman in her own right and can back it up with her playing. When Orionthi first joined Alice you could see the stiffness in her stage presence as she came from a totally different environment. The chops were there but she had that WTF did I get myself into look on her face. After about 2 weeks in with the band she was a changed  woman. She was now wearing fishnet stockings with holes in them, her makeup looked like it was applied with a paint brush, with little drops of blood on the corner of her mouth and she would write on her arm in red letters help me. She totally got into character. The band referred to her as Gory Ori. Then she hooked up romantically with the guy from Bon Jovi and drifted out of the spot light. Although she did appear with Alice and company last week at his annual charity show as did Nita and other musical names. 

[Steve Haynie]

Videos from last night's show have been posted. 

Jacky Vincent

 

Nita Strauss

 

Angel Vivaldi

 

[alantig]

I saw this tour last month.  Great show (at least from the main three - the opener left a bit to be desired).  And Nina is every bit as nice as reported - she remembered me and my buddy from a clinic a month before that in a different city, and she told Angel how cool she thought my cell phone case was.  We really enjoyed all three of the guitarists - it wasn't too much for us by any stretch.