Joe Satriani - Satriani Live!
Performance
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Joe Satriani - Satriani Live!
Performance
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Joe Satriani is one of a handful of living guitarists that most other professional guitarists only wish they could play like. He is a guitarist's guitarist - Steve Vai and Kirk Hammet used to take lessons from the guy for Christ's sake! He is also one of the few instrumental rock guitarists that actually knows how to write a decent song. Although his style is most closely associated with the rock and metal genres, he also infuses touches of blues, jazz, prog, and even electronica into his playing. It is a special kind of guitar fan who can sit through and enjoy an hour-long instrumental guitar album, or a two-hour concert worth of the same stuff, but many do, and they have made Joe Satriani one of the most popular instrumental guitarists on the planet. On his 1989 album, Flying In A Blue Dream, Satriani debuted his vocals for the first time, singing on a half-dozen of that album's songs, and he most recently sang on two songs from his 2004 release, Is There Love in Space?. Even so, he is still predominantly known as an instrumental guitarist. As far as his vocal skills go, let's just say that he makes Steve Vai's singing sound good. I'd rather he use the occasional guest vocalist, or just stick to the instrumentals. Satriani Live is an all instrumental affair. Since his first album, Not Of This Earth, debuted in 1986, Satriani, or "Satch", as he is known by friends and fans, has gone on to release ten more full-length studio albums, along with three live albums. 1993's Time Machine is a half-live, half-studio, double-CD set, so I included it in both categories. Satriani is also the driving force behind G3 - the guitar fan's dream tour he started in 1996 with Steve Vai. He and Steve have gone on to tour almost every year under the G3 moniker, with such other guitar luminaries as Eric Johnson, John Petrucci, Yngwie Malmsteen, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Robert Fripp joining them. These incredible tours have also produced three live CD/DVDs; G3: Live In Concert, Live In Denver, and Live In Tokyo. Satriani Live is the follow up to Joe's excellent 2001 concert DVD, Live In San Francisco. It was shot live on May 3rd, 2006 at The Grove in Anaheim, CA, during Satriani's Super Colossal world tour. It is also essentially the "Super Colossal Live" show, seeing that nine of that album's thirteen songs are performed, taking up half of the entire concert. The show begins as the stage lights are dimmed and an array of blue spotlights slowly circle the stage, creating a deep blue hue which sets the mood for the show's opening number. At this point, Satriani slowly strolls out on stage, dressed in his trademark stage attire; black jeans, skin-tight, plain, black, tee-shirt, and black sunglasses, which contrast his shiny bald head. He is already playing some cool guitar riff, which eventually transitions into the haunting opening chords to "Flying In A Blue Dream". I have not picked up Satriani's Super Colossal album yet, so this DVD offered up a good opportunity to evaluate most of that album as well. My first impression is that the songs are more melodic and straightforward than on his previous few releases, and is more reminiscent of his earliest material. The highlights for me were the relaxed, jazzy vibe of "A Cool New Way", the funky, atmospheric "One Robot's Dream", and the epic, multi-mooded "Made Of Tears", which featured some of the most inspired Satriani guitar solos I have heard in a while - including one played with his mouth. Satriani balances out all of the brand new material with a very healthy dose of songs from his legendary second album, Surfing With The Alien. All of the required songs are here; "Satch Boogie", "Ice 9", "Circles", "Always With Me, Always With You", as well as the title track. I have seen each of these songs performed a million times before, but this night Joe played them much looser and with more improvisation than I have seen before, and his fiery extended ending of "Always With Me" transformed this so called ballad into one of the evenings fiercest jams. After a smoking performance of "The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing", Joe gives one of his best lines of the night; "Now I know your thinking, he's just doing songs about mystical potato heads, and robots, and ice nine, and stuff like that, and your thinking Joe's pretty weird right?...but, I've got to play a love song once in a while", and then he kicks off the second Super Colossal ballad, appropriately titled "The Meaning of Love". During this stunning song, Satriani gives a virtual clinic on how to gracefully control a guitar's whammy bar. As good as Satriani is on the guitar, his backing band is equally as impressive. Dave LaRue, who is best known for his work with Steve Morse and the Dixie Dregs, and who has also played with John Petrucci on his last few G3 tours, is simply a bass guitar monster on this DVD. Check out the thunderous groove he lays down on "Cool #9", and the funky, slap-bass playing on "One Robot's Dream" that nearly steals the show. Joe's longtime drummer, Jeff Campitelli, is simply a drumming machine, and this show was no different. He wears a set of those giant studio headphones throughout the entire show though, which I find very annoying. What the hell is up with that? So you flub a few notes - its a damn rock concert! Galen Henson also lays down some superb rhythm guitar to thicken up the live mix nicely. If you are new to Joe Satriani's music, I would recommend the Live In San Francisco DVD over this one. It provides a much better career retrospective, and includes songs from every album between his 1986 debut, Not Of This Earth, and his 2000 release, Engines Of Creation. Satriani Live is overly focused on the new Super Colossal material, and the Surfing With The Alien classics. His two previous albums, Strange Beautiful Music and Is There Love In Space?, were conspicuously ignored here, even though they came out after the Live In San Francisco. Although the performances on this one are much looser and less sterile than the note-for-note renditions on Live In San Francisco, the stage show is very stripped down and not as visually appealing as that colorful show was. The lighting was very bright, and catered too much to the recording environment. As with the San Fran DVD, Satriani Live features some outstanding production values. PMC stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio tracks are provided and they both offer a clear and powerful live mix. Joe's guitar is appropriately cranked in both tracks, and really envelopes you in the superb surround sound mix. The bass sounded deep and penetrating, and every nuance of the drum kit stood out marvelously. The widescreen video presentation was filmed in Hi-Def and looked nearly flawless. I was almost scared away from buying this DVD after reading several scathing reviews about the camera direction being excessively frantic and not focusing on Joe enough. This is a big pet peeve of mine as well, but I am here to tell you that these reports are way overblown. Yes, the camera angle changes come a little too fast, which is all too typical of most recent concert videos, but this director generally did a decent job of capturing Satriani's best moments, and provided an overall good presentation of the show. Sometimes I wonder if any of these directors are even concert fans themselves, considering how pathetically some of them are filmed The Bonus Material is quite extensive and is highlighted by the 45-minute documentary "Flying In A Blue Dream: Joe Satriani India Tour", which, as the title indicates, provides a fascinating look behind the scenes of Joe's 2005 tour of India, where Lord Satch is apparently worshipped almost as much as Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva themselves. Also included are 2006 Tour Podcasts #1 - #4, a European tour slide show, band rehearsals for the Super Colossal world tour, the "Super Colossal" video, and lots more behind the scenes footage. Although there was a lot of repetition between this setlist and Satriani's previous DVD - every single non-Super Colossal song performed on this video was already featured on the Live in San Francisco DVD - this video is still definitely worth checking out just to hear the nine new songs performed live. Throw in Joe's updated takes on some of his classic songs, and the plethora of great bonus material, and you've got your self one magnificent DVD package. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - December 2006 |
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Running Time: 130 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - October 2006 |