Well here goes nothing…

Saw the great show at the Chronicle Pavilion. Man, was that a tight show. Everyone was on their game that night. Yngwie started off the show. I thought that he did a great job playing. A little loud in some senses, but some people play in different volumes than others and I cannot say anything bad. I thought it was pretty funny. I was up at the front of the show taking pictures and there must have been 1000 guitar picks that Yngwie sent out into the crowd. I think that is cool. It is sort of a giving back in some sense. I think though that at least 100 of them had bounced off my head while trying to get shots off. Then came Steve Vai!!!! What a great performance overall. The three-necked guitar was really a neat thing to see. The whole band was excellent. I have never seen that many caliper of players on once stage before in my life. Billy Sheehan on bass, Tony Macalpine on Keys/Guitar, Steve on Guitar. The new drummer that steve has is great. Sure played a lot of off-time and just kept the drumming going strong all night. And the other guitar player that he had in his band as well was really good too. When they would all trade off on playing the necks of each others guitars, just about made me jump for joy.

Now on to the man……

Joe Satriani. What more can I say than just "The Best". The best guitarist, the best rythem section, the melody of strings. I have seen Joe as many as 10 times if not more. And everytime that I see him play, he never seeces to amaze me with his playing. Jeff Campitelli played drums like he was a machine driven alien from another planet. Probably the same planet that Joe is from. You have to be an alien to play that good. Matt Bissionette is a talent on his own as well. He just sits back and plays his heart out. The photos of his kids on his bass made it probably more special to him. The road must be hard to be away for that long. I look forward to more shows in the Bay Area.

I had the honor of meeting Joe for the first time last year. His attitude towards the fans is the same attitude that his music has. Humble. He was one of the nicest musicians besides Mr. Campitelli that I have met in a long time. It is people like this that I would pay top dollar to see any day.

So thanks for a great G3 tour, and I look forward to seeing the show the next time around.

Good show, Neil Schon was a nice treat, once they got the sound worked out.

For all the Yngwie bashers...he's trying to give a ROCK show, why abuse him for trying to get the crowd fired up. He's trying to get some life outta you posers who before the 1st note are trying to find things wrong with his set. And why must we hear about his weight ? Were you hoping to sleep with him after the show ? That said, his set was kinda weak, too many solos without song structure...why not take this opportunity to pull out more of the instrumentals from the 1st record he never plays anymore...splitting hairs, he's still a master.

I'm always disappointed in the set lengths, why won't Vai do a full tour with Billy & Tony ? No Shy Boy or Attitude song ?

Joe did an excellent piece before the potatohead...kinda a solo piece that had the ideas that eventually became the groove thing. EXCELLENT !!!!!!! didn't play it in LA...

Yngwie was absolutely terrible. my friend and i counted over 30 picks thrown into the crowd (not including the jam), all the while doing fucking wrestling moves on his guitar. every song in his set had the same drum beat (his drummer was terrible), the same bass notes in the same key and same scale. same arpeggios, same unimpressive runs over and over. the guitar twirling got old real fast. his playing made me want to get up and leave. i almost did. i almost threw up when i heard Yngwie playing minor arpeggios during his version of red house. i'm terribly sorry for everyone who had to see that.

Steve Vai was awesome, I have never seen him play so well. his improvisation in the beginning was amazing, and his band had my jaw on the floor throughout the set. the reaper kicked ass, everyone's tone was great. i really think vai stole the show.

As for Joe, well, i've never heard his tone this good. the whole band sounded awesome, this is the best i have ever heard them. the mix down was perfect, really professional. BUT, joe did not seem into it. i'll probably get flamed for that, but i have seen joe lots of times, and this time just wasn't the same. he sounded great, but it seemed like he was just going through the motions. i wasn't feeling it.

The jam sucked. Yngwie soloed WHILE joe was singing, and while other people were soloing. talk about no musical etiquette. it was terrible. at times yngwie would just walk off stage, and he would be swinging his guitar around, trying to upstage everyone else while they were soloing. it just got plain obnoxious. it was a mistake to have him on the tour, and i think joe knows it judging from his face while yngwie soloed. but, it was very cool seeing joe jam with steve, if you could forget about yngwie. their chemistry is something you witness, you don't see it.

the pavilion had some sound troubles. there were problems with the stage monitors, and neil schon's amp and the voice mics. by the time the 4th jam song was on, they had it all figured out.

the show would have been awesome without yngwie, an 8 or 9 for sure. why doesn't vai do more solo tours in the US?

WOW, what a show! I've seen Satch twice before this, but this G3 has been my favorite Satch experience. Plus, I won the aftershow passes and got to meet Joe and Steve (and got them to sign the backplates of my JS and JEM - WOOT!). There were too many highlights and suprises to even remember, but I'll list some of them here:

1) Say what you want about Yngwie's style (and there were a few in the crowd who were put off), his technique kicked total ass. He was an 80's god up there! It was a lot of fun

2) Yngwie noodling on a nylon string for a minute. Dunno what the song was, but it was nice

3) Yngwie doing that volume swell thing

4) Vai - wow, what a showman! Very classy, expressive, and energetic performance. He is one with the guitar. He started with his three-neck Jem, which was tuned to open chords. I tried to talk to him after the show about what the chords were, but I had marbles in my mouth! He handled it well ;)

5) The "in the round" part with Tony, Dave, and Billy - classic!!!

6) Satch - a short but great set. My new live favorite is "Flying", and it was nice to hear "Circles" again. The part where he sat on a stool and riffed out the Power Cosmic thing was neato. I would have liked to hear more new stuff, but again, the set was short

7) The Jam - Vai doing "Little Wing" - that was awesome

8) Satch & Vai - handling it very well when Yngwie overplayed! Satch really seemed to dig Yngwie's playing. There was a part where Yngwie was riffing to hell, then suddenly stopped and pointed to Joe, as if to say "okay, you go" - Joe just shakes his head and seems to word out "no way, not after that"... ha!

9) Voodoo Chile - in spite of the technical problems with the mikes and monitors, there was some nice riffing. Yngwie can play slowly and tastefully *really nicely*

10) "Rocking in the free World" - Neil Young was a great choice

11) I mentioned meeting Steve already - meeting Joe was great, he was especially nice and inviting, seemed very eager to say hi.

Thanks guys, for putting on a fantastic show.

Well, I just got home from the show and I guess I'm compelled to share a few words. First of all, I take my hat off to show my appreciation for the massive amount of talent displayed by all three guitarists.

Yngwie was first to play and was very fun to watch. His speed is incredible, but frankly its so fast that when he plays you miss a lot of the artistic value in some of his songs in my opinion. Personally, I feel like there's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to speed. It's really great and fun to see someone play fast, but after a while of hearing fast, fast, fast, to the point of a lack of expression in the playing, everything just starts to sound empty. Don't get me wrong, I think there are moments when Yngwie displays a good dose of expression, but a lot of times throughout the set, things start to sound repetitive and somewhat stale, even though he plays so well. I would really like to see Yngwie come up with some diversity in how he expresses himself musically. I just felt as though there was a ton of aggression and anger, and a lack of sensitivity. Of course this is just my opinion and taste, so maybe others aren't concerned with those types of things.

Second on stage was Steve Vai. WOW! I am being completely honest when I say that Steve put on the best under 1 hour set by a guitarist I have ever heard before. I think Steve is better right now than he's ever been in his career. When his set was over he received a standing ovation by the entire audience and no one else received that kind of response. His showmanship and ability to lure you in to feeling his music through your entire body was amazing. Let's put it this way, he dedicated a song to his aunt and uncle and during the tune, my wife was crying. If that isn't feeling and expression I don't know what is. Steve was simply a joy to watch. I'd happily pay to see him again.

Finally Joe came out. Let me state that of all the guitarists, Joe is my personal favorite. That being said, I was somewhat disapointed with the performance. Joe played just fine and well, but the keyboards weren't there. I think that significantly changed the sound of all the songs. I don't expect everything to sound like the recording studio, but there's no doubt that the lack of keyboards changed things enough to make the sound a little below par. I was so happy to watch Joe play it wasn't that big of a deal, but dang I think Steve Vai has kind of stolen the show for this tour.

In the end, all the guitarists came back out for what I thought was a very anti-climatic end. They played I think 3 songs total together and aside from a few technical difficulties, Yngwie was a frigin solo hog to say the least. He seems really arrogant to me, and somehow I sense that from the other guitarists. Joe was a class act throughout the whole ending being patient sitting on the rhythms while Yngwie tried his best to drown out Steve during most of his attempts to solo. There were a few times during the ending that Yngwie took off his guitar, handed it to the roadie (probably tune it or something), and took a big drink of whatever. All this while the spotlight was still on him, the song was continuing to play, and the other guitarists were playing. Folks, that seems so disrespectful to me. It's bad for the people watching and if I were on stage playing guitar and he walked off like that, I would be kind of pissed about it. My guess based on body language from everyone is that's probably the case.

All in all, the show was very entertaining but certainly could have been better by Yngwie (with a toned down ego and more expression in his playing) and Joe (with the keyboards in the band). I have to give Steve Vai a perfect 10 on this one. His playing was fantastic, the showmanship was excellent, and the supporting band was freaking bursting with huge talent.

Thanks so much for putting on the show guys! My wife and I were happy to attend.

WOW! What a fantastic show. The finale was awesome and I left with my head buzzing. The acoustics where bohtersome and some problems with Yngwie's mic. Oh well. The thing that was really a piss off were the damn lights shining directly into my eyes. I couldn't see the stage sometimes. Overall I still loved it. I took a girlfriend that had never seen any of them play. She was astounded. Her major observation ... the musicians played for the love of the crowd and were not in it just for the $$$$. I told her ... welcome to Joe's world.

peace, --orz