Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Yngwie Malmsteen has illuminated the guitar world for the past four decades. Tonight, the engrossing Swede is back in Dublin for the first time in twenty years, to celebrate four decades as a solo artist, where he has mesmerised millions with his jaw-dropping fretboard wizardry.
Yngwie Malmsteen
The Button Factory, Dublin – 31 July 2025
Photography: Mark Stewart
Words: Brian Boyle
This evening’s soiree takes place at The Button Factory, a tidy little room nestled in the cobbled streets of the bustling Temple Bar, the famed and overpriced jungle of fakery and Paddywhackerey, designed to fleece gullible tourists and their innocent wallets.
But what appeared on stage just after nine bells was as authentic as it comes.
With a getting onto a 40-minute changeover, there were a few agitated punters aggressively watching their smart watches. Whether it was technical problems, or just being dramatically late, after a couple of wipes of the fretboard, Yngwie Malmsteen, the man, the myth and the Fender appeared from the wings.
Rising Force was always going to be the opener, but that did not make the predicted curtain raiser any less exciting. This is how you open a gig, right in the crowd’s face with all guns blazing.
Backed by a wall of mainly dummy Marshall amplifiers, the Swedish shredder’s opening moves were everything you hoped they would be. With trademark high kicks, volleying picks into the crowd, and of course a spin of the guitar over the shoulder, Yngwie Malmsteen is not only a master of his trade, he is a damn fine showman too. The playacting, fiddling with the knobs on the amps with his guitar tech was not fooling anyone.
With Nick Marino wedged over stage right, providing scintillating co-lead vocals and keyboards, Yngwie Malmsteen had free rein to prance around to his heart’s content.
And that he did. He seduced the sold-out crowd with a virtuosic run through of Top Down Foot Down, a captivating intro to Soldier, and a haunting Into Valhalla, all the time holding court as the epitome of a rock god.
At 62, Malmsteen is in great nick. His hair and rather impressive locks may be dyed within an inch of their lives, but we are not here tonight to judge his barnet or the two landing strips on the sides of his face.
While the majority did not pay to hear him sing, his vocals on Relentless Fury, Now Your Ships Are Burned, and Like An Angel (For April) were not too shabby at all, and may have widened the eyes of the guitar purists who maybe did not know he sang at all.
Glancing around during a robust Wolves At The Door, there was a lot of heavily invested stares, intensely studying a master at work, and possibly some keen axemen experiencing deep feelings of inadequacy.
But if you get past that, you feel the man’s enthusiasm, and it is rightly infectious. Every note he plucks is executed with passion and purpose.
Studying him on YouTube is one thing, but when you are witnessing his near-supernatural fingertips from a mere few feet, it really is something otherworldly.
His compositions, for the most part, are short and sweet. But what he packs into those fleeting moments is exquisite. The lengthier tunes, on the other hand, give you real bang for your buck. Seventh Sign was a particular highlight, as was the AOR-friendly Fire And Ice.
To the untrained ears in attendance, they could argue that at times, they were hearing the same solo on a loop. Yes, it’s widdly widdly for most of the night, but every solo he served up was a genuine extension of his soul.
To break away from the outlandish, a meaty cover of Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water gave his fingers time to regroup and only endeared him to the crowd more.
Because of his reputation and, of course, his unique gift, Malmsteen can get away with a lot that others cannot. That means going down the neo-classical route with a salute to Bach and Paganini, then all of a sudden banging out Brian May’s iconic Bohemian Rhapsody solo.
But all that does not excuse bass player Emilio Martinez referring to his boss as maestro. While it may have been tongue-in-cheek, the cringe levels were high. 
However, there were no such feelings when he paid tribute to one of his heroes, Jimi Hendrix, with an elevating version of Red House. And what a perfect setting it was to hear it, a rammed 550 sold out Button Factory with sweat running down the walls, and Malmsteen getting lost in the music of one of the men who inspired him to pick up the guitar in the first place.
His guitar solo slot was, as you would expect, absolutely fuckin nuts. Why he needs one at all is anyone’s guess. But it was great craic. He was ripping the strings off, he swung it around precariously, then placed it face down on a cabinet and made it squeal like a pig. Seriously, where would you get it?
But the best of all was the display of artist and tech trust, when his Fender took flight over his head, and into the nervous hands of his minion.
Yngwie Malmsteen has always divided opinion. His approach to his music has been misinterpreted by some as self-indulgent and that of a show-off.
But as I touched on earlier, seeing him within the same four walls completely quashes that.
Two decades were way too long to wait for this incredible musician’s return to the Emerald Isle. But he monumentally repaid our patience with something that will never be repeated, except by him, of course.
