Holy whammy bar Batman!  This was a nice trip down memory lane…these guys bring me back a ways.  And I’m talking a LONG way back.  Decades, to the time when I first started playing guitar. Like most I’m sure, I got into the usual classic rock suspects—Hendrix, Page, Santana, etc.–jamming for hours to Led Zeppelin records and trying to cop Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” ad nauseum. Perhaps different from the 60’s & 70’s, speed metal was starting to make an appearance in the early 80’s, which brought a total different flavor to my cassette jams. Metallica, Testament and Anthrax certainly come to mind. However, all that changed for the better when I first heard Joe Satriani and Steve Vai—especially Vai.  These two guitarists really widened my horizons for the better.  Of course, they are much older now—as am I—but they can still shred it up!  And shred they did…

It’s been about 5 years since I had seen Steve Vai (with the “Generation Axe” tour) and much, much longer since I’d seen Joe Satriani.  The current show is more scaled down in terms of production.  Both bands had bass, drums and the always important auxiliary player on keys/guitar (and whatever else is needed).  But that’s it. No hoopla, no crazy pyrotechnics, no wild stage show, just a couple guys with their guitars and backing band, shedding like no tomorrow. This stage in particular was quite big for only four players (in each band) but the sound was extremely large regardless.   And the whammy use was off the charts. I think I registered an 11 on the whammy scale!

Vai opened up the show.  For those that may have never seen Steve Vai, he is one of the cooler guitar players that exists.  His look, his style, his theatrics are so great and go along with his playing famously.  He looks like a wizard when he plays.  (A young Vai comes to mind from the movie “Crossroads” if you want to know what I’m talking about.)  He—like many others sonic warriors—really gets into the sound of his guitar as he plays.  He’s very emotional and conversational with his guitar playing in addition to being lightning fast. I guess Jimi infected us all to a certain extent.

His style is really unique.  His legato playing is off the charts and his stacatto fretwork is not too shabby either.  He’s the type of player that rarely misses in any setting and you can hear it in his playing.  Of course then there is the infamous whammy bar which he controls like a magician.  His choice of notes and phrasing is quite different and way beyond the pay grade of even the above average player.  He employs quite a bit of wide intervals, slurs, two-handed tapping and some of the most beautiful and intriguing noise I’ve ever heard.  It’s such a great time to watch him play, in addition to listening to what is coming from his fretboard.  Every time I see him I am just awe struck at how much of an amazing player he is.

Vai was promoting his newest album, Inviolate.  I am not familiar with this work so many of these joints were brand new to me.  I did notice a couple different things from the last show. One was that he had (for the first time I’ve ever seen) a 335 type of Ibanez.  For those that know Steve Vai, his axe of choice is usually the Gem 777 Ibanez 7-string.  The 335 axe had no whammy and was a much thicker, chunkier sound than I’m used to hearing from him.  He pulled it out on a very moody, dark and altered chord sounding tune in 5/4.  He also only used a couple different guitars, rather than the wide array of newest and coolest looking Ibanez’s that he creates. I really wanted to see the lightbrite guitar with glowing fretboard dots, but alas overall this show was more raw music and guitar, less fanfare.

Somewhere in the middle of this set, he pulled out a very strange instrument (this is the same one on the cover of Inviolate).  I had seen this before in a musician’s magazine article, but I still am not sure what it is or what the story is behind it other than simply, “Steve Vai”.  The instrument is a combination of 3 guitars—an odd Sitar-ish sounding 12-string at the top, a more regular 6 (might have been 7) string guitar below that and then a 5 string bass beneath those two.  They were all connected by one body which was very ornate and looked like something you would see at a Cirque du Soleil show.  It was set on a stand—most likely because it looked very difficult to play with it strapped on—and Vai honestly looked like a mad scientist as he played the thing.  Although there was drumming going on in the background, the way Vai was playing this thing, no accompaniment was needed.  He could play the bass, harmony and melody all at the same time! It makes me think of the way Stanley Clarke beat-boxes his upright bass.  So strange but super cool and of course something innovative from the legendary Vai.

The highlight of the set for me was the standout of the night.  He performed a truly incredible and very emotional rendition of “For the Love of God” which takes me back to the Passion and Warfare album.  He even had the old video of him standing in the mountains playing behind the band while he jammed the song.  The album track is quite amazing; however, hearing him do it live really brought it home and showcased just how communicative and emotive his playing is.  He absolutely killed it on this tune to a standing ovation from the crowd.  It almost brought tears to my eyes, it was that fucking good.  Definitely made my night, so thank you again Mr. Vai!

Unfortunately, this is where his set ended.  If I had any qualms about the show at all, it would be that I wanted to see more Vai!  (And ultimately I did, but we’ll get to that).  However, with a split bill, you gotta give time to the other guy.  And the other guy is not half bad either (ha ha).  It was time for Joe Satriani to take the stage.  There was about a 30 minute break in between (hats off to the production crew for making this a very quick and seamless deal).  And then came Joe…

Since the late 80’s, Joe has been performing his signature rock-fusion blend of guitar hits.  His set is a little bit more linear than Vai’s—mostly sticking to the hits—so it was much more recognizable even as some of the material is almost 4 decades old!  I can tell you that at 67 years of age, Joe still rocks like no tomorrow.  As I get older, I kind of lose track of time and how old all of my favorite guitar heroes are today.  Yeah, they are getting up there.  However, just listening to their playing you would not know it.  They still have the chops and bring the good energy.  I hope to be rocking that hard in my later days!

Joe’s set featured quite a few joints off of his classic 1987 album, Surfing With the Alien.  After an opener that I cannot place (where he played a harmonica head melody) he went right into the title track, followed by the extremely well known (and my favorite of the album) “Satch Boogie”.  These were obviously well received by the crowd.  What’s great about these tunes is that Joe plays the original solos almost note for note, so everything about the song is very recognizable and draws in the crowd even more.  Needless to say there was a lot of air guitar! It’s crazy to me honestly, because I can barely remember the solos that I just put on an upcoming album from last month! (More on that coming up, stay tuned!)

Joe’s playing is actually similar to Vai’s in some respects.  He told the story about how Steve Vai showed up at his door (holding a guitar w/o strings in one hand and a pack of strings in the other) asking that Joe teach him.  I think Joe was only in his mid teens at the time and these guys have known and loved each other ever since.  Truly a great and lasting guitar friendship. I would describe Joe’s playing as a little bit more bluesy and in the box compared to Vai.  They both command the whammy bar like none other.  I mean even EVH would be proud.  In any case Joe can shred it up too! Some of the runs and note choices really sound similar between the two of them, especially when it comes to the two handed tapping, which they both excel at.

From there the set went into some different tunes–“Sahara” sounds like a newer tune which features a really cool video as well, although not my favorite song of the night.  “Bad Moon” featured Joe on vocals—which he doesn’t do too often but it’s fun to see every now and then.  He then told a story about recording the track “Flying In a Blue Dream” (which incidentally was my first introduction to the Lydian mode–thanks Joe!)  I always thought this album was before the Alien album but it actually came out after.   It’s a great album in its own right; I highly recommend it for some alternate tunes if you are bored with Surfing with the Alien. Of course, he many more albums too, these are just some of my favs.

But being that Surfing with the Alien is his best known album he stuck with these tracks primarily. The 3/4 ballad, “Always with You, Always with Me” is one of his better known and popular tracks from 1987.
Again, never one of my favorites (overplayed by radio goons) but a classic in its own right.  After another unfamiliar tune “If I Could Fly”, he closed his set down with a killer version of “Ice 9”.  To me this was just an average tune on the album, but live was a whole different story–it was killer!  Very heavy and driving vibe and it really rocked the joint.  They went out on a limb on this one, doing an extended improv jam in the middle that featured a really nice dynamic section with Joe (not at full blaring volume for a few minutes) and then trading with the auxiliary guy, who was actually pretty adept on his Nord keyboard–he had some nice chops.  It felt like this tune was over 10 minutes long, but every second was great!

When Vai left the stage he mentioned that he “would see us later”.  I was hoping he would come back
out for a jam and he did.  But I did not expect a 30+ minute rock fest with him and Joe sharing the
stage together.  This part of the show was a lot of fun.  They started off with a new song—it sounded
like they wrote it on the road and it has a crazy video to back it up.  I had never heard it (probably like
most of the crowd) so it was hard to follow, but it had its moments.  However, it was where they went
from there that really turned up the dial past 11.

They did an extremely rockin’ cover of “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks that went on for quite a while.
They traded solos forever and really played to the crowd.  It was fun to see them trade fours, each time trying to out-whammy each other at every turn.  The closer and highlight of the evening was a very cool
cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”.  As it turns out, Joe’s auxiliary guy is quite the vocalist in addition to talented keyboardist.  He belted it out cleanly, hitting every note.  James Hetfield would have been proud.  In the middle they went off into another trading session—Joe made sure to honor Kirk Hammet’s solo (another Satriani student) so it was nice to hear that.  And then they traded again for what seemed like 15 minutes.  Very cool and super hip.  The crowd couldn’t get enough.

And then finally, the insane rock-metal fusion whammy fest ended.   If I’m honest, I was a little whammied out by then.  The rub of having this kind of show in a performance theater is that these venues just aren’t designed for rock shows.  It doesn’t matter what city, what venue, etc.  If the venue is a “theater” it just doesn’t play nice with rock guitar bands.  And it shows—whether it’s the inability of the sound guys to eq rock music properly or the hall shape/design itself, or both.  The acoustics suck unless you are close enough to the stage to hear the actual amps and then it is too loud anyway.  And did I already say that the show TOO LOUD ANYWAY?? Remember kiddies, dynamics are your friends. You don’t always have to turn everything up as loud as it will go. You can always hear the guitarist (upper mid range) but the bass is lost in a low wash of kick drum low mid woof. I can always see the auxiliary guy playing something, but can barely hear it.  What’s left is usually just guitar, snare, toms and cymbals.  No, it didn’t ruin the night at all, but the sound could have been A LOT better. AND the guitar was so loud my ears rang for an extra day or two.  Just sayin’.  Maybe I’m getting old! Ha ha ha…

Regardless, nothing could spoil being able to see two of my favorite and more influential guitar heroes of
the day, in the flesh and watch them effortlessly rip guitar solo after guitar solo—even in their 60’s!  This was a fun show and I highly recommend a ticket, especially if you like either player (or both). You won’t get to see them forever. Long live rock and long live Steve Vai and Joe Satriani!