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Inviolate, the latest album of guitar virtuoso Steve Vai came out earlier this year and it did not take him very long to start touring for it. As expected, Montreal was a mandatory stop during his North American tour and the Théâtre Beanfield, formerly known by many as the Théâtre Corona, was getting packed pretty quickly as soon as the doors opened.

As usual, his diversified music brings a very varied crowd to his concerts and you can see older fans as well as very young ones seeing Steve for the very first time. The floor area and the balcony looked pretty full when Steve got on stage to start things off with a new song called ‘Avalancha’. This is quickly followed by "Giant Balls Of Gold" and "Little Pretty" before taking the time to introduce himself as well as the band members touring with him. While he does so, he moves around and the band had to follow him with their ad lib playing and, most importantly, not miss a beat. We see very rapidly that this is a little game he plays with his musicians and he tries to stomp them with his actions, this added a very playful atmosphere to the concert.

As usual, Steve is focused on his playing, but man, does he make it look easy, he is one with his guitars and they have no secrets for him. Dante Frisiello is the other guy on guitars. He does an amazing job and he is complementing Steve’s playing to perfection. On the other side of the stage, we have Philip Bynoe on bass, his playing and stage presence is stellar and he is always all smiles while playing. It is like he can’t realize he is playing with Steve and someone needs to tell him that this is not a dream. Steve will also interact with Philip, Dante and drummer Jeremy Colson during his guitar solo on the song "Lights Are On" before inviting their three technicians on stage to play guitar during "Incantation".

Every band member had his moment in the spotlight with their own solo, but Philip had more than he bargained for as he broke one of his bass strings. Even if he looked surprised at first, he took it in stride and used his broken string as whip to add bling to his solo before swapping bass before the next song. Steve introduced another new song "Greenish Blues" and joked that his wife told him he did not speak enough during his concerts, so he was trying to do his best to not just play guitar. 

Steve took full advantage of the video screen in the back during the song "I’m Becoming" as the images showed the evolution of a Fetus to only transform itself as a young Steve Vai at the end of the song. The emotions were flying high during the song ‘Whispering A Prayer’ and Steve did not hesitate to demonstrate many one hand playing techniques.

Everyone was wondering when the 35-pound hydra guitar was going to make its appearance, and it was only after the drum solo that fans could see him play this new guitar on the song ‘Teeth of the Hydra’. This guitar is not only beautiful, but functional as well and Steve uses every part of if in successions throughout the song. The band followed with another new song before playing two of his most iconic songs, ‘Liberty’ and "For The Love Of God" and their sound engineer came on stage do an operatic interpretation of the vocals on the later one. That was really impressive and unexpected at the same time, just like Steve’s music. The band ended their two and a half hour set with the song ‘Fire Garden Suite IV - Taurus Bulba’ as an encore.

As expected, Steve Vai was not only excellent on guitar but he was really entertaining. He interacted with the crowd but also with all of his band members as they were all participating in the show, not only playing in the background. Fans loved every second and displayed a lot of affection towards him throughout the concert and you could see that Steve was really touched by the fan’s love.