Yngwie J. Malmsteen at The Islington Assembly Rooms 2025, Review and photos by Dawn Osborne

Yngwie was in a good mood tonight and had a very strong connection with the audience, best I have have ever seen play.

The crowd itself had some responsibility for this bonhomie and they gave an extremely warm reception to everyone on the bill. Indeed Spirit War a french trio offering accessible Hard Rock/Classic Metal seem genuinely surprised at the great reaction they got. They sang in English, but the French accent came out between songs. “It is our pleazure to play for you”. The young guitarist rocked back and forth and smiled broadly like Schenker when he played, reaching out to the crowd at every opportunity. Their easily learned “woah-woah ..” melodies get the crowd singing enthusiastically along. Not a bad start!

Next up were the Greek band Andry who were symphonic metal. There was so much going on onstage it was difficult to know where to look! Their singer was wearing a horned shiny headdress and pvc mini skirt and thigh boots. While she sang dramatically the guitarist who is apparently from the US kept raising his guitar to the crowd. In fact the whole band were good at crowd engagement. The bass player kept throwing shapes and even the keyboard player had a keytar so he could raise it up and come front stage as well. All the while a huge skull with blue light for eyes sat on the stage left surveying the crowd. From beginning to end they were a whirlwind on stage. They did a noisy heavy version of Deep Purple’s ‘Burn’ to round things off.

Yngwie also rushed on with endless energy and kept it up for two hours. He has lost weight and was looking fit and healthy like he was twenty, leg up on the monitors in leather trousers, with no sign of any slowing down on his super fast solos.

Throwing his guitar up in the air, spinning it by its strap around his neck, rubbing it down on the monitors or turning it around to play with his teeth he was there to entertain. At times the smoke emanating behind him made him look literally smoking hot.

He even pulled all the strings off his guitar at one point echoing Paganini’s virtuoso performances, amazing and delighting the crowd. He then knelt down and threw it backwards over his head without looking, trusting the roadie in the wings to catch it and put it away,

If he wanted them to shout more he merely had to look at his watch as if to say is that the time I must go and the crowd amped up the noise. He also kept them hyper focussed by kicking plectrums into the audience for them to catch.

The crowd are there to see him alone and this made a real difference to when I last saw him at a Festival. They are mad for every note he plays and hang on everything he says. To the extent that when he shouts “reverb” the crowd starts chanting “reverb reverb”.

The perfect mix of Classical music, Blues and Rock it was powerful and epic, with delicate electric acoustic solos contrasted with heavy riffs for even more impact.

As you would expect on a fortieth anniversary tour the tracks played spanned his whole career with bands and solo. There was an emphasis on his latest studio album ‘Parabellum’ from which he played three tracks.

There were three covers too, but whether he’s covering Bach or Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple the audience’s attention is undimmed. An instrumental reference to Bohemian Rhapsody is a tribute to Queen and English Rock music and gets a huge cheer.

For the encore he played a delicate renaissance style electric acoustic solo contrasting then with the very heavy guitar, ‘Black Star’ and ‘I’ll See The Light Tonight’.

Whether he was  playing classical or hoochie coochie blues Yngwie played beautifully tonight and the transfer of energy between him and the crowd was all exceptionally positive! No one could ask for anything more!

Dawn Osborne