In 1986, there was a movie that was just meh, but it was about a young guitarist (Ralph Macchio) who was chasing the missing Robert Johnson song. Titled “Crossroads”. It was where I had first heard Steve Vai’s playing, as he was the Devil’s “boy” Jack Butler.
In the final scene, the blow-off, there is a duel between Butler and Eugene, and the final licks were delivered by Eugene. This has been come to be known as “Eugene’s Bag of Tricks”, and it was really played by Steve Vai (even though he “botches” his response to it1).
Just about every wannabe shredder learns to play it (I can play a couple of the riffs in it, but piecing it all together is far beyond my abilities). There are literally hundreds of Youtube videos of people playing it.
Then I found this…
Worth the watch.
In case you never saw the movie, the best of it is this 14 minute clip:
Fast forward to about 5 minutes in to get to the good stuff.
The rest of the movie has some good music, and all the blues stuff was played by Ry Cooder.
In an interview later, Vai admitted that it took several takes for him to make it look convincing that he couldn’t play the part.