Steve Vai has announced a European leg of his upcoming Inviolate World Tour, in support of his latest studio album, Inviolate.
Kicking off on June 4 at the O2 Academy in Glasgow, the 34-date tour will pass through Manchester, London and Bristol in the UK, before heading to the continent to make stops in France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and many more. Vai will be joined by guitarist/keyboardist Dave Weiner, bassist Philip Bynoe and drummer Jeremy Colson.
The European leg of the tour will end at the Teatro Tivoli in Barcelona on July 19, giving Vai two months off before returning to the US leg of the tour, which begins September 28.
“It’s amazing to realize that after three years of not having our show on stage, it’s now on the horizon and will start rolling out in Europe this summer,” Vai said. “I can feel the road now and the enthusiastic audience that we will be connecting with.”
Steve Vai originally planned to start his Inviolate World Tour in the US in January, but the US leg was postponed due to an injury he sustained while making pizza.
“I did something really stupid over the summer,” Vai told Eddie Trunk last month (via Blabbermouth). It’s crazy. I have a pizza oven, and I was putting a pizza in the oven and the dough sticks on a little plate, and I had to shake it really hard to pull it out and I tore another one off [tendon].”
“I thought I could get through the tour,” he continued, “but [it’s] a mega-tour that we are planning, because I was dying to go on tour. We have [around] 250 shows we want to do worldwide, and it’s gonna take [about] a year and a half. Once I started to prepare, it became really obvious that there was just no way.
The pizza oven accident was the latest in a string of incidents for an injury-prone Steve Vai. In 2021 he underwent shoulder surgery for another injury, but while recovering he wrote and published Backpacka song he shreds entirely with one hand.
And in March 2021, the virtuoso revealed he had held a guitar chord for so long he had to undergo surgery. “I was doing this funny thing and I had to put my thumb in this really weird position,” he said.
“And I had to hold that chord for a really long time – I was meditating on it. And I knew it was a tough position, and I was sitting there and playing it and playing and playing, and 20 minutes later I was coming out in some so, and I [felt pain in my hand]. So I kind of sprained that, and then all of a sudden I developed a trigger finger…”
But he’s all recovered and ready to bring his shred-a-thon of a new album to stages all over Europe. See the full list of dates below.
- June 4: Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy
- June 5: Manchester, UK – The Ritz
- June 7: London, UK – Palladium
- June 9: Bristol, UK – O2 Academy
- June 10: Dublin, Ireland – Academy
- June 11: Belfast, UK – Spotlight
- June 13: Paris, France – The Trianon
- June 14: Strasbourg, France – La Laiterie
- June 16: Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller
- June 17: Bergen, Norway – USF Verftet
- June 18: Gothenburg, Sweden – Pustervik
- June 19: Stockholm, Sweden – Fållan
- June 20: Copenhagen, Denmark – Amager Bio
- June 22: Lille, France – Splendid
- June 23: Clisson, France – Hellfest
- June 24: Bordeaux-Cenon, France – Rocher de Palmer
- June 25: Nimes, France – Paloma
- June 26: Lyon, France – Ferry
- June 28: Nuremberg, Germany – Hirsch
- June 29: Linz, Austria – Posthof
- July 1: Udine, Italy – Castello
- July 2: Macerata, Italy – Sferisterio
- July 3: Bari, Italy – Teatro Petruzzelli
- July 4: Florence, Italy – Ultravox Arena
- July 5: Gardone Riviera, Italy – Anfiteatro del Vittoriale
- July 6: Zurich, Switzerland – Complex
- July 8: Berlin, Germany – Columbia Theater
- July 9: Weert, Netherlands – Bospop Festival
- July 10: Antwerp, Belgium – OLT Rivierenhof
- July 12: Toulouse, France – Le Bikini
- July 14: Sancti Petri, Spain – Concert Music Festival
- July 16: Valencia, Spain – Jardin de Vivieros
- July 17: Vigo, Spain – Auditorio Mar do Vigo
- July 19: Barcelona, Spain – Teatro Tivoli
