Currently touring to promote his thirteenth studio album, “Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards”, multiple Grammy Award nominee and undisputed guitar maestro, Joe Satriani descends upon a packed Bristol Colston Hall, on only the second date of his highly anticipated UK tour.

A worldwide guitar hero since his 1987 breakthrough album, “Surfing With The Alien”, and with over 10 million albums sold, “Satch“ continues to push the envelope of modern rock guitar playing.

Inspired to play at age fourteen soon after learning of the death of Jimi Hendrix, Joe Satriani studied music and began teaching guitar.

Many of his students went onto be the top rock guitar players of the 80s and 90s, most notably virtuoso Steve Vai, and Kirk Hammet of Metallica.

Continually voted the best guitarist in leading guitar magazines, chosen to tour with Mick Jagger and Deep Purple, creating the almost annual G3 showcase tour, and more recently teaming up with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony of Van Halen plus Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to form Chickenfoot, Satch has had a long and illustrious career.

Hiding behind a pair of shades, shaven headed Satriani takes to stage with Allen Whitmann (UPDATED) on bass, drummer Jeff Campitelli, Galen Henson his tour manager and additional guitar player, and former Frank Zappa guitarist Mike Keneally on keyboards. For the next two hours, the enthusiastic crowd are treated to 23 career-spanning tracks, including seven from the latest album.

Satriani opens with “Ice 9” from the classic “Surfing With The Alien”, followed by “Hordes of Locusts” from his debut disc “Not of This Earth” and then the title track from the 1989 album, “Flying in a Blue Dream”, all completing a spellbinding, jaw-dropping, initial fifteen minutes of guitar skill supremacy.

Rapturous applause and shrills of delight welcome Satch to the microphone for the first of only a few, brief monolgues during his set. He introduces a new offering, “Light Years Away”, before continuing with fan favourites “Memories” and “War”. Another brief pause takes place prior to “Premonition”, “Satch Boogie” and “Revelation”.

As the show progressed, it dawned on me that Satriani, amongst all of the technical prowess that he is known for, has the ability to inject emotion into his music. There is far more than random noodling occurring here, this guy is not just rattling off scale after scale at warp factor 10, as some see it.

Disappointingly, one track that never came was “Surfing With The Alien”, but a host of new and old to pick from included: “Pyrrhic Victoria”, “Crystal Planet”, “Dream Song”, “God is Crying”, “Andalusia”, “Littleworth Lane”, “Why”, “Wind in the Trees”, “Wormhole Wizards”, “Always with Me, Always with You” and “Big Bad Moon”.

Of course, if you want to talk guitar technique then the man has everything in his locker. Legato, two-handed tapping, arpeggio tapping, rapid sweep picking, volume swells, harmonics, extreme whammy bar effects, not to mention his trademark compositional use of the pitch axis theory. But all of this aside, there is deep thought behind his compositions. These may be instrumentals, but these are true “songs”, with melody and refrains throughout.

The night came to an end with “Crowd Chant” and “Summer Song”, and the Bristol crowd just didn’t want Satch to go. After all, whilst he is clearly very gifted and in complete command of the guitar, there is a sense of mastery and accomplishment seeing him play. I for one, will indulge myself again on Saturday when he plays his final UK date at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.

Review & Photography: Steve Johnston