By Damian Fanelli
Guitarist David Smash—whose YouTube moniker is Dovydas—was performing a solo gig at a brewery in Bradenton, Florida, one Tuesday night this summer.
Besides the fact that it was a slow night (his audience consisted of five people, which happens to the best of us), everything was going along just fine—until someone threw him a curve ball and requested a Steve Vai song. The song in question is “Tender Surrender,” a track from 1995’s Alien Love Secrets.
We’ll let Smash take it from here:
“I was doing my live looping improvisation show,” he says. “One lady was cracking jokes in between songs, and then she threw out the most unexpected request I’ve ever received. I usually don’t include audience interactions in my videos, but this was so rare and funny I just had to keep it in.”
Instead of giving up, Smash scrambled and seriously thought it through; he searched for tabs online and played his own version of the classic Vai tune. You can watch it unfold below; below that, you’ll find a live performance of the song by Vai (for a bit of context). Enjoy!
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