Impatiently Waiting For March 28
by Cullen James

For those of you who don’t read my blog (1) or haven’t been by in a while, my wife’s early Valentine’s Day present (2) to me (and, to herself) is a nice evening out in Atlanta to see G3 2007 (3).

[I hate it when there are so many hotlinks stacked in an opening paragraph, so I’ll provide citation: (1) My blog; (2) The entry on my blog where I talk about said present; (3) Joe Satriani’s G3 page.]

Dudes. Check out the name of the column. This concert is like Mecca to me. I am such a fan of these three guitarists in particular, I am nearly bursting my seams waiting for this show. I watch the 2005 G3DVD and listen to the CD pretty often.

So, over the next few weeks, helping build up more anticipation for me than any show could possibly deliver, I’m going to talk about the different guitarists and other aspects of G3. This week I’m going to talk about Paul Gilbert.

Paul Gilbert is lumped in with a lot of different guitarists – sometimes it’s honest, sometimes it’s unfair.

When in Racer X in the mid-80s, he made a name for himself as one of the fastest guitarists in heavy metal. Scarified is considered by many to be one of the best heavy metal instrumentals of 80s.

The other thing that has endured Gilbert to a wide audience is his sense of humor. Manifesting in quirky licks, songs, stage outfits and a truly hilarious Web site.

Gilbert has earned comparisons to some of heavy metal’s “royalty” such as Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, but especially Yngwie Malmsteen. This comparison to Yngwie resulted in the Racer X instrumental YRO (Yngwie Rip Off). Most of this comparison is due to the fact that he studied at the Guitar Institute for a year; the institute using the chops of the aforementioned guitarists as curricula. Gilbert has instructed at GIT and is now the unofficial dean of the MI Japan schools.

Thus, those comparisons come honest. However, he has earned some comparisons that aren’t quite as kind. See, Gilbert is also co-responsible for Mr. Big. Because of he and Billy Sheehan, we have been cursed with I’m the One Who Wants to be With You. Well … everyone makes mistakes. Especially 80s and 90s era metal bands. And even though they gave us that song, there was a hell of a lot of good tunes they put out. Sheehan is a superbassist, you know.

Anyway, check out his stuff, check out his site, and enjoy yourself. It won’t be hard.

Paul Gilbert does a recent version of Scarified:

Watch the bass player rock that Rickenbacker bass!

Here’s a bass solo by Billy Sheehan and later Paul Gilbert comes out and they have a guitar vs. bass duel (it’s very long – drums kick in and Gilbert joins at around 6 minutes).

Who the hell has a scalloped fretboard on the bass? Billy freakin’ Sheehan.

And this is just amazing.

Type “Paul Gilbert” into You Tube and find some other great videos.

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Comments

Satriani is a Long Island boy, so he always gets props from me :)

Have I ever told you how much I LOATHE Yngwie? Probably.

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Satriani is definately the man. G3? Only a dream from where I live, up in the middle of nowhere-enjoy it, man

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