A high schooler has gone viral after delivering a flawless rendition of Steve Vai’s For The Love of God at his prom.
Armed with a Music Man Cutlass electric guitar – quite possibly Jason Richardson’s slick new signature judging by the finish – the Hungarian shredder, who posts covers on his YouTube channel under the name Laci, shows finesse across long, drawn-out passages and speedy alternate-picked runs alike, with excellent whammy bar control and plenty of emotion in his performance.
A good chunk of the audience may not quite understand the talent that has gone into mastering Vai’s track, but guitarists worldwide will know this isn’t just a casual romp through Smoke on the Water.
This is a fretboard workout that many players obsess over, a lesson unto itself. The delicate volume knob rolls and whammy trickery that concludes Laci’s performance tells you he too has spent hours fine-tuning his skills.
The video has amassed just shy of 100,000 views in a month – not bad for a prom performance in Hungary. Comments range from being “blown away” to “mesmerized”, with one person saying, “I will make sure Steve Vai sees this video.” When he does, he too will be equally as impressed.
In fact, the performance is all the more impressive because of how big the stage looks around Laci. During one wide shot, you can see there is no tube amp or pedalboard on stage, a lone cable snaking off backstage into a mysterious amp or amp modeler. But instead of the stage swallowing him up, he owns it.
Vai once told Guitar World that his preparation for the recording of For the Love of God saw him meditating, fasting, and practicing non-stop over four days.
“I was trying to push myself to the limit,” he said. “When it came time to record, my fingers were totally gone. I had pictures of my fingers taken after that session, and they were bleeding under the skin.”
Last year Steve Vai travelled to Mexico for a show to find a street performer nailing the song on... two guitars.
