Guitar Tab: Steve Vai - Eugene's Trick Bag

Steve Vai’s “Eugene’s Trick Bag” is one of those pieces that lives in every guitarist’s imagination—thanks to the legendary final duel in the 1986 film Crossroads. In the movie, it’s the climactic moment where Eugene Martone outplays the devil’s own guitarist, Jack Butler (played by Vai himself), with a blazing neoclassical run that suddenly flips the script and wins his soul back.

The piece itself is deeply rooted in classical virtuosity. Vai built “Eugene’s Trick Bag” on the framework of Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice No. 5, one of the most notoriously demanding violin studies ever written. Paganini carried his own “sold his soul to the devil” legend, so Vai tying that myth into a movie about a bluesman’s Faustian bargain is just perfect storytelling through guitar.

For many players, this track has become a serious benchmark: a mix of shred, classical phrasing, insane alternate picking, and theatrical drama. It bridges worlds—linking 19th-century violin fireworks to 1980s electric guitar heroics, and inspiring generations of players to chase that same level of precision and intensity. When Vai later released the track on his The Elusive Light and Sound, Vol. 1 collection of film music, it only cemented its status as one of the most iconic “movie guitar” moments of all time.

If this piece means something to you—maybe you discovered it through the movie, or maybe it was the first time you realized what was possible on the guitar—this video is for you.

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