Thank you oh mighty GP interviewing LEGEND! Eddie was the king but Yngwie was the supernova of my shred generation.
my exposure to Yngwie was very cool. heard Steeler "Hot on your Heels" premiere on 98 Rock radio station in Honolulu and the switchboard lit up! got the details (wrote STEELER-INGVAY on a paper) and caught the bus to the record store after school the next day because i had to have the album in my hand.
Graham Bonnett did an interview on the same station a while later explaining he had a new band and album with Yngwie and world premiered "Island In the Sun" during the interview. He said they would be coming to Oahu to play a concert, which i went to in 1984 at the University of Hawaii Ballroom in the front row. My friend's band Sacred Rite opened the show.
Seeing the guy blaze in person running around on stage blew my mind. My cousin took this pic and horns shadow on Yngwie's strat compliments of my friend Andrew
Saw him the next year with Rising Force in Cali at the Pomona Valley Auditorium with Jeff Scott Soto, Jens and Anders Johanssen, and they destroyed! That band freed him up to do exactly what he wanted which was neoclassically punch face. Again front row, he threw his sweat towel at the crowd after the final bow and i grabbed it as some guy jumped on my back to yank in from me, so my brother Zachman punched him in the kindeys from behind. Ah the good old days!
He came back to Oahu to open for Dio on his Marching Out tour at the Neal Blaisdell Concert Arena and again i moshed to front row. My cousin took pics at that one too-- i need to find those. There were rumours on the radio about clashes with Yngwie and Vivian, so YJM kinda went off that night to smoke Viv and did. Played Eruption with his teeth. Met Jens and Anders at a rock club called the Jazz Cellar that night in Waikiki and we had great fun. I knew the house band so we had them jam a few Rainbow tunes--Man on the Silver Mountain and Long Live Rock and Roll. They carved their initials in my friend's car. metal!
The next night the MAN himself Yngwie came into the club with his girlfriend Amber and a giant biker type security guard. I stumbled up towards him like a starstruck schoolgirl for an autograph and bouncer guy chested me into the next universe! Yngwie called him off, signed my cocktail napkin and hung out with me and my friend at a table for an hour. I begged him to play but he said he just left a local recording studio and was burnt and too hammered. Was super nice and friendly all evening.
Moved into a new college apartment that fall (86?), and as i'm bringing stuff in i hear what sounds like a bootleg of shredding coming from my yet to meet new roomie's room. then i realize it's Yngwie. then i realize it's from the same concert i went to in Hawaii! needless to say we hit it off. Saw him open for ACDC in Long Beach for the Trilogy tour, and my friend Mark Weiss was his singer for a minute until Joe Lynn Turner took the gig. Caught the best years! Thanks for the memories!
Loved his playing but Not so much for the singer Graham Bonnet albeit a stepping stone for Yngwie to get his name out there and eventually become a solo artist. I will listen to the interview when I get a chance, thanks for sharing!
