A View From The Back Of The Room: SatchVai Band (Duncan Everson)

SatchVai Band – Wolverhampton Civic Hall 18.06.25

** HEADLINE – Wolverhampton Police want to speak to two men in regard to alleged public displays of extreme Tremolo abuse **

I had a few preconceptions going into this gig and it didn’t get off to a good start with a mix up about shooting the gig I won’t bore you with here, but all my own fault as I can’t read communications properly it seems! Anyway , this means I didn’t catch the support slot from Ned Evett who was a guitarist/singer solo act, but I did speak to several people who all said good things, so would be worth checking out as I’d expect this crowd to be pretty knowledgeable about that kind of thing.

So, onto the main event – just what is my damn issue then, eh? Well, it’s the title basically. SatchVai Band. Band? Really? (Insert John Cena “Are you sure about that?” meme here). Two songs written and performed together doesn’t really make a band, does it? Well, read on to see what I think now the dust has settled.

I have to say, things have changed since I last saw Joe Satriani live. That must have been all the way back in the 90s I think and at that time that sort of music had a very distinct kind of audience. I was amazed to see how much things had changed, and the stereotypes had been dispelled. There were quite a number of women at the show! One of them was even pregnant, so that’s two stereotypes gone straightaway ;) There was dancing taking place and everything, how times have changed indeed – it was wonderful to see. And Satch Boogie will do that you, you know so it wasn’t that much of a surprise really – the dancing bit I mean.

Joe and Steve both came out for the first two songs, the aforementioned new ones they’ve written together. Opening with I Wanna Play My Guitar, Marco Mendoza on vocals and bass taking the legend Glenn Hughes’ place from the record and doing a very fine job too. This was the song that made me want to be at the gig in the first place, I was sent the link to the video by a mate and immediately said I wanted to go because I absolutely love this song. Just simple (for them) guitar driven rock music with the widdling kept to a fairly low level, it really works well, I think. This was a very faithful version and the same can be said of the next one, Sea Of Emotion, Pt1, although the riff on this is a much heavier beast that the recorded version and really stands out well. I very much enjoyed the comedic video shown too.

Now Joe stepped off stage and left Steve to perform a couple of his songs. During Zeus In Chains, Pete Thorn, the third guitarist on stage provided some great harmonic lines to go along with Vai, proving his worth and why he’s there on the tour. Together they sounded just like the record once again. Ok, this is all good and all, but this was what I was concerned about – is this just basically the G2 tour rather than a band? 

After Vai then performed Little Pretty, Satriani came back on and after asking Steve to rejoin the stage because he’d wandered off, forgetting where they were in the setlist to much hilarity, he introduced, “a little mash-up of theirs”. This was Ice 9 of Satch’s and The Crying Machine blended together, with both of them playing parts of both songs’ solos. This was what I wanted to see and really hoped they’d do – there can’t be many people good enough to play this stuff and it was fantastic to hear old classics simultaneously being played faithfully AND being given a new slant from one of their few peers. 

I don’t know if they did this on the G3/4 tours, but I haven’t ever seen one, so it was new to me, and I absolutely loved it. This happened several other time throughout the night where they joined together to play each other’s songs, such as next up, Flying In A Blue Dream, where both main guitarists harmonised incredible squealing guitars showing amazing control before the whole band closed out the song together with a marvellous “trash-can” ending, everyone watching everyone else before ultimately turning to Kenny Arnoff on drums to signal the close. Wonderful stuff.

It was great to see that on a number of occasions Pete Thorn was given the chance to have a few little solos for himself as well as harmonise with the others on occasion but, personally I’d like to have seen a bit more of Mendoza and Arnoff in the spotlight, maybe a bass/drum solo section for next time?

There were a few potential negatives though, but minor and possibly just personal. For me, the setlist was near perfect as I hadn’t seen either of the main men for a good number of years and a greatest hits collection plus a few new ones was perfect, but if you were a fan who went to every tour by both, maybe not so much. 

Bit like a Maiden fan hearing Iron Maiden for the hundredth time really. The encore of Enter Sandman was a strange choice for me but judging by the reaction from the crowd, I was definitely in the minority and as Joe did teach Kirk Hammett, he’s sort of got the right to play one of his songs if he wants. During the ending, when it was all starting to devolve into completely loopy squealing guitars and noise, Arnoff was solid at the back and brought everything back in line by re-introducing the familiar drum pattern, which was a really great “band” moment again.

So, is this really a band? Yes, it is. One that’s in its early days as a band and with only a couple of songs to it’s name so far, but when they are as good as those two are and with gigs like this already, this is a band I really can’t wait to hear more from and will be keeping an ear out for. 8/10