STEVE VAI Praises DAVID LEE ROTH's Vocal Performance On KISS Tour: 'He Delivered Like A Boss'

Guitar legend Steve Vai has praised David Lee Roth's vocal performance on the KISS "End Of The Road" tour, saying that the VAN HALEN frontman "delivered like a boss" at the trek's Los Angeles stop.

Earlier today (Thursday, March 5),Vai took to his Twitter to write: "Decided to go out last night and see KISS and David Lee Roth at the Staples Center. I'm sure glad I did. [My wife] Pia and I were in nostalgic bliss.

"I first saw KISS when I was perhaps 14 years old at the Calderone Concert Hall on Long Island. When 'Kiss Alive' came out in 1975 it was as if the gods of rock and roll theatrical entertainment manifested them from our wanting imaginations. We were all gobsmacked.

"It's interesting to imagine what life would have been like without certain artists being born. Imagine your world without QUEEN, or Jimi Hendrix, or LED ZEPPELIN, etc. Those are a few that hit the mark for me, but KISS!!! They owned a particular space in the pantheons of rock. I know my life would have had a lot less color in it without them. And they delivered spectacularly. It was the most over the top, sensational rock show I've seen. After so many years, they still deliver in the most authentic of ways.

"And it was great to see Dave Roth and his band. They did a powerful set of all the classics. The band was exceptionally tight and Dave looked and sounded great.

"Sometimes these early audience videos of the first few shows of a tour can be unfair and when those first few came out of Dave's Vegas shows, I knew it was unfortunate, but I also knew he could sing better than that, and this was obvious to us at last nights show. He delivered like a boss and the audience loved it. So glad I decided to go out."

Vai played with Roth on his 1986 album "Eat 'Em And Smile" as well as its 1988 follow-up, "Skyscraper".

A few years ago, Vai explained to the Examiner.com that he didn't expect the "Eat 'Em And Smile" band to come together when they first hooked up three and a half decades ago. He said: "Dave got the best musicians he could, who he thought was the best. And I thought it was a hell of a band… It was one of my favorite times in my whole musical career, because we were rock stars, you know? And touring with somebody like Dave, you can't even imagine what it was like. It was just glorious, man. And I knew it was fleeting, and I knew it was something that I wasn't going to be doing my whole life, because my brand of music in my own head is very different."

"Eat 'Em And Smile" was the first of two Roth albums to feature the duo of Vai and Billy Sheehan on guitar and bass. Throughout the LP, the two would often sync complicated bass lines together with the lead guitar parts, as on tracks such as "Shyboy" and "Elephant Gun".