Joe, Steve, Mom and Me

It was almost 34 years ago exactly that on a school night my older brother drove me and one of my best friends to the Embassy Theater in Fort Wayne to see Joe Satriani live. He was touring in support of the Flying In A Blue Dream album, and this was my first concert. My parents bought the tickets and asked my older brother if he’d take me and my friend Jason.

I’m not privy to any of the back room conversations, but I’m sure they didn’t have to bribe him too much other than buying his ticket. My brother was cool, and he knew what a guitar wizard Joe Satriani was. My friend Jason and I were both pretty deep into Satriani’s world. I had all his solo albums up to that point(which was 3 full-lengths and one EP), and we were also big fans of his bassist Stu Hamm. Stu was a wizard on the bass, so to see them both live was going to be mind-blowing for a couple 16-year olds(and even a 22-year old.)

Of course it was a game changer for me, as well as my friend and older brother, seeing Satch live with that band(including Hamm on bass and Jonathan Mover on drums.) From the band performing tracks from Flying In A Blue Dream, Surfing With The Alien, and Not Of This Earth, as well as Stu Hamm’s bass solo which included him playing the ‘Peanuts’ theme on the bass guitar, it was one of those revelatory evenings of music.

I was already a fan boy of Satch(and Stu), but after that night I’d remain a fan permanently. Not many bands that I was a fan of back in 1990 are still on my regular playlist; Rush, a few speed metal bands, Hendrix, and of course Joe Satriani. I still listen to some Steve Vai, but mostly Passion and Warfare when the mood strikes. If you’re lucky you hold on to a few of those teen year bands and they evolve and grow with you, but for me most of the stuff from the 80s as far as rock bands went did not age well. Since Satch was mostly instrumental music I never had to contend with the cringey lyrics that most of those bands wrote.

Of course as I got older my tastes changed. I moved away from the pop metal of the Sunset Strip and got into older bands, and the newer bands I listened to reflected the influences of those older bands. Then jazz hit, and doom metal, and then the alternative and post-punk of the 70s and 80s. I started digging those bands that I was too isolated to know about back in high school and my early 20s. That’s the great thing about music, you’re never late to a band. You just have to wait until you’re brain is ready for the music(hell, I’m 50 and just now really getting into Sonic Youth.)

But Joe Satriani has been a constant since the age of 14, when on some random Friday night when I was a Freshman in high school my mom gave me the money to buy Surfing With the Alien. My teenage brain felt on fire hearing that for the first time(every time I hear that solo in “Ice 9” I still get chills.) This was new guitar territory for me. Kind of like when I saw Crossroads for the first time and seeing the “cutting heads” scene where Steve Vai portrayed Jack Butler, the Devil’s guitarist who went up against the Long Island bluesman himself, Ralph Macchio.

That was another revelatory moment in my pre-teen brain. I’d never heard both the precision and aggressiveness in guitar playing quite like Vai. He became one of my favorite players instantly after watching that movie. Then of course Eat ‘Em And Smile came along and that was it. Skyscraper, Whitesnake’s Slip of the Tongue, Flex-Able, his appearance on that PiL album, then of course Passion and Warfare. He was(and is) one of the best guitarists still recording, and with enough quirkiness to make him singular in his field.

Fast forward from the 80s to 4/20/24, this past Saturday night. I took my mom(who will be 75 this July) to see Joe Satriani and Steve Vai at the place where it all began, the Embassy Theater. I was lucky enough to snag tickets for their joint tour a few months back. At first I thought it’d be my wife and I going, but then I remembered what my mom had said when I told her about my wife and I going to see Steve Vai in the small town of Wabash, Indiana at the Honeywell Center. He was touring for the 25th anniversary of Passion and Warfare, playing the album in its entirety. My mom had said “Oh wow, I wish I’d known about that. I would have loved to see Steve Vai live.”

Crossroads made an impression on my parents, too. I’d get random calls from my mom over the years, asking “What was the name of that guitarist in Crossroads? Man was he good.” Well my wife and I decided I should give my mom the extra ticket and take her to see this joint Satriani/Vai tour. Make it her Christmas present. She was thrilled to say the least. I think the last concert my mom saw was Aerosmith and ZZ Top at the Coliseum in Fort Wayne in the early 90s. Or maybe George Thorogood at Piere’s, also in Fort Wayne and in the early 90s.

It’s been a long time, let’s say that.

The seats were amazing. Far left mezzanine, first row and first two seats. We had an amazing view of the stage. Steve Vai opened the show with mostly new songs from his Inviolate album. I have to admit, I wasn’t all the familiar with the songs. I’ve heard the album, but only a couple times. Still, the songs were great. Vai is a master player and performer, stalking the stage as opposed to walking it. For a guy who had pretty serious shoulder surgery just a couple years ago he’s back in fine form. The last song he played was the classic “For Love Of God” from Passion and Warfare, and he brought some fire to that performance.

We also got to see Steve play “The Hydra”. Weird and cool all in one fail swoop.

Joe and his band came out maybe 10 minutes after Vai finished and jumped right into what I’d call a greatest hits set. Going right into “Surfing With The Alien”, then “The Extremist”, Joe had to have melted the faces off those folks in the first few rows. Drummer Kenny Aronoff looked like Satch’s twin with his bald head and sunglasses, and his drumming was as muscular and pristine as always(he wasn’t playing stuff like this with ol’ Johnny Couger.) The bassist and keyboardist/guitarist that rounded out Joe’s band were tight and kept up with the two masters easily.

Joe finished his set with a mind-blowing version of “Ice 9”, in which he and the keyboardist went back and forth in a jam that sounded more like Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer in 1977. To say I was blown away is putting it mildly.

For the finale Steve Vai came out and closed the show with Joe and his band. They opened with their new collaborative track “The Sea Of Emotion, Part I”. It’s a great song with big riffs and masterful solos and lots of great melodic touches. They then go into a cover of Van Halen’s version of “You Really Got Me” that was pretty stunning. Satch and Vai trading solos, with Vai doing his thing while Joe stuck to the solo Eddie wrote for the Kinks’ classic.

They closed the night on a cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. That was a completely unexpected surprise, and they did it perfectly. When Vai started playing those open notes that Midwest crowd lost it. It was perfect, and a nice little nod to one of Joe Satriani’s old guitar students, Mr. Kirk Hammett.

My mom was absolutely floored. She’d turn to me and yell every once in a while about Vai or Satriani. She was so thrilled she got to see them play together. So was I. I was more thrilled that I got to share that experience with the person that bought me Surfing With The Alien when I was 14. The person that would call me randomly in the evening over the years to ask me who that guy was that played in Crossroads.

While the music and performances were amazing, seeing it with my mom was even more so. My mom rocks more than your mom.