One of my all time guitar heroes is doubtless Joe Satriani. A master in inpredictable melodies. The first time I met his music en virtuosity was in my youth. I just started play the guitar myself and so my brother gave me the album "Surfing with the alien". (my brother was a real 'hardrocker' at that time). Het told me "If you want to hear a true guitarplayer, you have to listen to this album'.
First I thought it was a bit strange, he used all those guitar sounds of which you almost couldn't hear it was a guitar. The drum-tracks where often electronic drums. But after listening the album a couple of times, I got blown away by his creativity. On the album there is the song "Always with you Always with me". It is a instrumental ballad close to perfection. It made a huge impression, the sensitivity, bombastic and again virtuosity..... It is still one of my all time favorites, till the present day it is one of the songs that I want to be played at my funerall. The clip I included is at the Live Expo in Sevilla in 1992, for me the best version of the song ever heard.
From that time on, Joe was one of my heroes. I followed him from there on, bought his albums. And went to every concert he played in the Netherlands. During that time I switched from guitarplaying to bassplaying, but Joe was still my favorit player.
One show in particular I want to mention heren. On the 23 of may 1997 G3 came to Holland. G3 was project started by Joe Satriani where he took two other great guitar with him on tour, every artis played some of his own songs and at the end of the night they closed the show with a big Jam on stage. Heaven for every single guitarlover.
I went together (ofcourse) with my brother. I told him that I wanted to go early to the venue so that we can get a spot in front of the stage. He wasn't convinced it was necessary to get there to early, but we went anyway.
It was one a clock in the afternoon when we arrived and my brother got a bit angry. There wasn't a single person at the venue waiting for the show. So we where there to freaking early :). I told him, things will turn out fine. Let's take a walk along the building of the venue.
When we were walking along the building we came at the artist entrance and just saw a big bus ariving. So we waited a little to see whi was in it. It turned out to be Steve Vai for the soundcheck that afternoon. So we waited for him to get of the bus. Real groupies as we are ;) we asked if we could get his autograph, and he was more than willing to do so. I had a jeans-jacket wich I gladly sacreficed for this purpose. When Steve wanted to sign the shirt of my brother he saw that he was wearing a Metalica shirt, and out of the blue het wrote "Kirk Hammet" in stead of his own autograph.. When I noticed it, I was crying of laughing. We had much fun with it. And what a humble guy Steve Vai is.
Finally it was showtime, and my idea paided off. We where right in front of the stage, front row. So let the show begin....
The show was awesome, everything I hoped for. Joe played "Always with you Always with me" , Steve Vai played "for the love of god" and "Bad Horsie", so my evening was one to remember. The third guitarplayer by the way was Adrian Legg. He plays acoustic and was a big suprise to us.
After the show I told my brother we should head to the artistentry again, perhaps we can get a autograph of Joe too I told him. When we arrived there were a few people. On the outside there was Mike Keneally, musician from Steve's band. We had a chat with him, he asked if the sound in the venue was right. He was really interested in our opinion, great relaxed guy.
But........there still wasn't a sign of Joe. So I asked a security guy if he knew If Joe was coming outside, the guy told us (what a great guy btw) that Joe was entering the bus on the other side of the venue. So my brother and I took a run to the other side hoping to catch a glimp of Joe, and Lucky us...He just came out of the venue. The first thing I thought of "What a small guy", he was reaching my shoulder. But he was very friendly and talked a little, he signed my jacket, so my evening was complete.
The years after that I followed Joe in his musical evolution. I didn't liked every album, some where to much expirimental in my opinion. But he stayed , for me, one of the influencers of this time.
He took a little trip towards blues on his selfnamed album "Joe Satriani", that album for me is proof of his diversity and of his musicality...
I would love to invite you to listen this album and tell me what you think.
Thanks for reading,