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Post subject: Satch
Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:55 pm
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Three buddies of mine are all deep into the shred thing and invited me to go see Joe Satriani tonight in Edmonton. We had fairly good seats. On the floor near centre about 12 rows back from the stage.

Gordie Johnson (formerly of Big Sugar, Grady and recent stint with Wide Mouth Mason) opened up the show. I think he must have found Jesus or something since his Big Sugar days. The new act is a duo, just he and a drummer, with Gordie on pedal steel, a Les Paul and some Geddy Lee style foot pedals for bass and they're called Sit Down Servant. They played heavily overdriven/distorted pedal steel renditions of a number of old hymns. It was interesting. Not exactly my cup of tea but different enough to hold my attention for the 45 minutes they played.

Since becoming involved with Chickenfoot I had thought maybe Joe's style would have changed but I guess not. I've never been much of a Satch fan but my friends love him. They were hoping if I saw him play live I might develop an appreciation for the guy. Seeing him play live confirmed and cemented my preexisting opinion of him. Lots of reach, lots of speed and pretty damned accurate. Kind of like approaching the guitar like it's an athletic competition but not very musical in my opinion. Most of what he does I would call exercises, the kind that would be normally used to warm up before a gig or to train the hands in muscle memory ... except with him it's really fast. I don't actually consider it to be real music because there seems to be no discernible melody in anything he does. Mostly just a long unbroken string of really fast and very forgettable solos. I heard nothing that stirred me.

Joe's tones were very highly processed with tons of wah, compression, delay and reverb. He had a few variations of his overall tone but they all had those four elements in extremely high quantities. There was so much processing that all of his various tones had a huge helping of white noise which did not help in endearing him to me. At first I thought maybe the white noise was due to the house mains being driven too hard but whenever he paused I noticed the other players sounded pretty good. It was only when Joe played that I could hear the noise. He must have a very effective noise gate in his rig.

The show was way too loud, too. I pulled out my iPhone and opened up the SPL app I have on it and measured 102 dB at my seat. About midway through Joe's set I got up to use the john and after I was away from the high volume levels I noticed my ears were really ringing quite badly. They're still ringing as I type this an hour and a half later. On the way back in I noticed there were some closed circuit TVs showing the concert so I sat outside and watched the rest of the show from there. Maybe I would be more impressed with him if I liked the genre he plays but I don't so it's hard for me to say anything more complimentary than pointing out he is fast and accurate and has a long reach. The experience certainly did nothing to prompt me to pay him any more attention than I ever did before. At least the tix cost under 90 bucks. That's something, I guess.

I'm not saying the man doesn't have any talent. He just doesn't have the kind of talent I find musical. I'm still glad I went because I had always wondered if I might perceive him differently if I saw him play live.

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Post subject: Re: Satch
Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:11 am
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Thanks for the review Matt. I'm with you mostly too. Outside of a few songs from his first couple of albums (which I bought back then) his playing is how you have described it, lol.

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Post subject: Re: Satch
Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 3:52 am
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I never got him, or Vai or any of the other shredders out there. The Guitars don't appeal to me either. Just not my thing.

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Post subject: Re: Satch
Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 4:29 am
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While I appreciate how talented these guys are and the skill involved in shredding, it's not my thing.

Lots of people love it though.


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Post subject: Re: Satch
Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 5:08 am
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Still impressed by the multiple guitar bit Vai and friends did at the first Crossroads Concert. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Satch
Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:43 am
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Satch is one of the more 'educated' solo guitar players. He knows his music theory.

He had a few guitar students who went on to bigger things:

Steve Vai
Charlie Hunter
Larry LaLonde (Primus)
Rick Hunolt (Exodus)
Kirk Hammett (Metallica)
Andy Timmons (Danger Danger)
Kevin Cadogan (Third Eye Blind)
Alex Skolnick (Testament)

I'll always check out his latest stuff, Satch is great. :D

Sorry you didn't enjoy the concert more. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea.

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