Guitar Legends Bring 50 Years Of Friendship And Music Together For A Mega Combined Tour Showcase Dubbed Satch Vai

Apr 21, 2024 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

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By Christopher David

As the great figures in hard rock reach the three, four, five decade marks, the opportunities to see the creative fruits of those years of nonstop touring and fine-tuning one’s craft become fewer and farther between.  

Which was why the “Satch Vai” tour of 2024 was such a vital entry in this year’s list of top shows thus far.  Joe Satriani and Steve Vai—two of the giants in all of guitar history—crossed the three-hour mark on Thursday at the Chicago Theatre, showing off every trick in the book and clearly having a blast while doing it.

 

Vai’s set led the night, accompanied by esoteric, spacey visuals as the instrumentalist, now into his fifth decade of guitar work, played material from his most recent record, Inviolate, as well as classics like “For the Love of God” (his breakthrough solo single from 1990), the angular, melodic hook of “Zeus in Chains” and the show-stopping “Teeth of the Hydra,” which saw his mounted, triple-neck guitar working overtime as Vai played different tones on all three necks at the same time—it would have been a impressive feat just for show, made even more spectacular by the extent to which the song was built around the use of the titular “Hydra.”

Satriani’s vibe was more groove, with a lighter, bouncier touch to his material versus the more brooding, introspective tone of Vai’s set.  Backed by drummer extraordinaire Kenny Aronoff, bassist Bryan Beller and guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Rai Thistlethwayte, Satch took the crowd through a set that felt conceptual at a times, with themes of flying and transcendence at the fore.  “Flying in a Blue Dream” encapsulated the best of Satriani’s work in the ‘80s, and the romantic, sad melody of “Always With Me, Always With You” was a beautiful accompaniment to the grandeur of the space.  

But it was the encore that saw the eye of the hurricane, as Vai returned to the stage, backed by Satriani’s band, for a three-song encore that lasted nearly thirty minutes.  Leading with their new co-single “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1,” Satch and Vai traded lick after lick for covers of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and a thundering rendition of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” (for which Thistlethwayte provided vocals).  Both songs moved from their standard arrangements into an extended jam that featured both guitarists’ playing off of each other with smiles on their faces from start to finish, the extent and ability of which can’t even be summed up here.  If ever there was a case for the phrase ‘you had to be there,’ well…if you weren’t, you should have been.  

It’s one thing to be a master of one’s craft.  It’s another to have had one’s craft mastered for so long that the instrument is simply part of you, an extension of your body and mind.  And it’s another entirely to see two such greats demonstrate that on the same stage—a truly priceless experience for guitar enthusiasts.  

For more on this tour, click here

For photos from the show at Chicago Theatre, click here

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“Satch/Vai” – Chicago Theatre, Chicago, IL, 4/18/24 (setlist)

[Steve Vai]

Avalancha

Building the Church

Little Pretty

Tender Surrender

Lights Are On

Zeus in Chains

Teeth of the Hydra

For the Love of God

[Joe Satriani]

The Extremist

Surfing With the Alien

Satch Boogie

Sahara

Nineteen Eighty

Big Bad Moon

Flying in a Blue Dream

Blue Foot Groovy

Always With Me, Always With You

If I Could Fly

Ice 9

[Vai and Satriani]

The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1

You Really Got Me (Kinks cover, extended jam)

Enter Sandman (Metallica cover, extended jam)

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