773. Yngwie J. Malmsteen / Spellbound: Live in Tampa. 2014. 2.5/5

You would think that a live album - correction, a double live album - featuring Yngwie Malmsteen, arguably the most celebrated guitarist of our time, should be a no brainer. We already know he pretty much plays live what he does in the studio because he is such a stickler for his instrument, so you know that they guitaring will be superb. Then we know he has an extensive catalogue of songs, both with vocals, and just instrumentals, so that he will surely choose a set list that will have everyone jumping. And even though he played almost every instrument on his last album Spellbound, including the sparse vocals that were required, we know he has had a brilliant array of vocalists through the years, so no matter who he employed to sing on this would be terrific.
Well, most of that doesn't really come to pass at all on this live album, Spellbound: Live in Tampa.

The majority of this double album is made up of instrumental numbers. Now, that's not such a big deal when Yngwie is involved, but no matter how far you want to go with this argument, this many instrumentals can only engender boredom and repetition whether you are watching it, or just listening to it. As brilliant as Yngwie is, his guitaring can only hold your complete attention in an instrumental for a certain length of time. So count them up. There are 30 songs on this release, and of those 30, there are 19 instrumentals, of varying lengths. Once again, don't get me wrong, Yngwie is a genius and brilliant to listen to, but when it's all guitar for too much of the time, well it just becomes too much. Even when you throw in stuff like "Far Beyond the Sun" and "Black Star" that are still as brilliant today as they were 30 years ago.
So, with a majority of instrumental tracks, no doubt Yngwie decided that forking out for a lead vocalist was a bit of a waste of time, given that he would be rendered superfluous for at least half of the set. So, what do you do? Well, you get your keyboardist Nick Marino to do a double shift, and sing lead vocals when necessary as well as fill out the keys necessary for the night. Great money saving idea. Except that Marino's vocals are despicable. Not terrible, but just not right. They don't fit the songs at all, and when he has to do any amount of vocal chord stretching (and given that he's trying to sing songs done by Jeff Scott Soto, Joe Lynn Turner, Doogie White and Tim Owens, that is a LOT!) he is found out noticeably. And it would be a false statement to say that it doesn't detract from the songs at all, because it really does. Overall the current band line up is good. Everyone does their job well, and leaves it to Yngwie to be the show. It does get very tiresome as Marino keeps telling the crowd "Let's hear it for the maestro!!" You know how good he is, we know how good he is, and Yngwie knows how good he is. Surely neither party needs to be encouraged to give praise.

This actually turns out to be a rather depressing release. The vocals on the songs that require them are just dreadful, and suck any enjoyment out of them immediately. The songs that don't require vocals are either brilliant (see above mentioned two songs as examples) or just a little overplayed to enjoy. No one can doubt Yngwie still has it, he plays like a demon. If he had taken Ripper out on vocals for this, it probably rates a 4 or 4.5 out of five, even despite the average song list. Put the average song list and the average vocals together, and you have a rather unhappy result.

Rating:  I can see the moment of some kind of truth.  2.5/5