“Mr. Whammy” Brings a New Guitar Storm to Ljubljana (2013)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Ljubljana / Cvetličarna / Slovenia
Concert date: 05/25/2013
Attendance: 700
Ticket price: €32.00 (presale) / €35.00 (day of show)

A lot has been written about Joe Satriani. This is the man who paved a real highway into the musical universe of guitar rock, and with his landmark album »Surfing With The Alien« (1987) rocketed to the front rank of the most important and influential guitar virtuosos of our time. They didn’t just turn their musical talent and genius into a string of gorgeous studio works, they also shared that knowledge selflessly with a generation of musicians that later gave us bands like Metallica, Testament, Primus, Exodus, Possessed… and more.

Just over two weeks ago, another master of six-string theory, Andy Timmons, played in nearby Villach in Carinthia – RockLine report HERE. He’s also a great friend of Joe Satriani, known for his work with the G3 outfit in the (eternal) pairing of Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Over the years, with top-class guitarists in the third slot of the G3 “trio,” that pairing has produced tours full of world-class musical treats, featuring the likes of Steve Lukather (Toto), Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Yngwie J. Malmsteen, John Petrucci (Dream Theater), plus former “Scorpions” man Michael Schenker (ex-UFO) and Uli Jon Roth, and the list is far from complete. In short: Joe Satriani is the figure in the entertainment world of rock music who keeps moving mountains. A figure whose nature, kind-hearted and caring character generates an environment of positive creative energy!

Joe Satriani released the album »Unstoppable Momentum« at the start of this May – RockLine review HERE. It’s yet another gorgeous document in his rich discography, a sin worth committing for all connoisseurs of speed, control, the optimized textbook principle of racing up and down the guitar neck, super jamming, unpredictable musical twists and genre fusion. In other words, the guitar speaks in a language that’s accessible to every single Earthling!

And yet, a support act did step onto the Cvetličarna stage in between. A Joe Satriani show doesn’t need a support act. In fact, the best support act at a gig like this is the one that doesn’t play at all. So, no band. The Croatian quintet Žanamari & J’Animals, imposed on us by “gray eminences” in (higher) spheres unknown to us rather than actually wanted, is up there on stage. Not more fitting Slovenian acts like Uroš Planinc Group, Grega Habič Band, The Elevators and so on. Whatever. Facts are facts, and we Satriani-playing gourmets had to grit our teeth a little. The support band did play nicely, though. My first thought was a parallel with Evanescence, only with a much less dark atmospheric curtain. Picture a soul-pop vocal caught in the lower tuning of metal riffing. Caught in the flirty, kinetic form of a swaying rhythm. Hear one song and you’ve heard them all. Tuned, arranged and performed on a single frequency. Where there’s no distortion, the “clean” sound is weighed down with a “stereo chorus” effect, which keeps the “groove” going even in the less rock-charged parts of the songs. Sweet and noisy at the same time. Hand in hand. A pleasant ambience. But on some other occasion, somewhere else, please. Žanamari is an excellent young singer. She’s a magnet. She’s attractive, she knows how to win over a crowd, and what matters most, she backs it all up credibly. With excellent singing. The band is clearly breaking the ice. There’s the motive and a concrete edge over rival bands for corporations and MTV to “adopt them as their own”. Especially if you’ve successfully advertised underwear beforehand.

Satch took the stage at 9:20 p.m.! Cvetličarna was nicely packed. It must have been similar a few days earlier at Tvornica kulture in Zagreb. And by the way, Satriani’s tour, dedicated to promoting the new studio effort »Unstoppable Momentum,« reached Ljubljana via Zagreb – Belgrade – Ljubljana, and not, as you’d normally expect, Belgrade – Zagreb – Ljubljana. A few extra kilometers didn’t show on Satriani’s figure on stage, though. The man was rested, since the band “took a break” on 05/24/2013. Satch theatrically handed the opening part of the show over to the rhythm section, letting it warm up first. So the first to introduce himself to the audience was Marco Minnemann, a top-notch drummer who in 2011 missed permanent membership in Dream Theater by a hair when they were looking for a replacement for the “runaway” Mike Portnoy. Here comes the famous Cool #9, and the lineup takes a full run-up! On stage alongside Satch is the aforementioned Marco Minnemann (Vinnie Colaiuta, who laid down the drums and percussion for Satch’s new album, is evidently too busy with his first employer, Sting), then bassist Bryan Beller… Hello? Minnemann – Beller? Sounds kind of familiar. Add Guthrie Govan and you get The Aristocrats. Beller is also a colleague of Vai’s, and where there’s Vai, Zappa is close by, and where there’s Zappa, his son Dweezil is even closer. In short, these are the circles of the world’s highest-ranked rock musicians. And last but not least: where there are Vai and Zappa, there’s also Mike Keneally, a multi-instrumentalist who already helped Satriani at Hala Tivoli in Ljubljana at the November 2010 concert, as well as Steve Vai when he played Hala Tivoli too, way back on 04/13/2000. So, a sensational super backing band gathered around Satch!

For all the superiority of the supporting crew, every eye was fixed on the superiority of one and only one. Joseph! Above all, he once again impressed with a presence that radiates an incredible sense of approachability, friendliness and lack of pretension. Joe remains an ecstatic teenager at heart, and he shows the kid inside him without any inhibitions in his stage act. On top of his exceptional playing, straight out of a pure-blooded textbook, which the ears and eyes of the guitar scholars in the throng at Cvetličarna that night swallowed almost in silence, he added the familiar “goofy” sentiment of his shows. “Whammy” left, “whammy” right, “pull-offs” that in “squeezes” lifted the roof of Cvetličarna into the air, the famous tapping figures, exceptional control of the tremolo arm… At a good 56 years old, the guy is by no means short on skills when it comes to showing off his mastery of the bible of six-string theory. Over the years, he’s, if anything, only deepening it and widening its expressive range.

Satriani put together an excellent set list. Songs from the current studio album naturally led the way, but he weighed them down thoroughly with his recognizable standards, the golden oldies of his earlier studio releases. Satriani threw the crowd a real treat with his famous single The Crush Of Love, taken from the prehistoric EP “Dreaming #11”. The spectacle, lasting a good two hours, was spiced up here and there with all sorts of juicy improvisational inserts. The famous instrumental Always With Me, Always With You, which Satriani announced as the song the audience always sings along to at shows for a reason unknown to him, thus stretched to an epic nine minutes. Satriani tacked a “With The Little Help From My Friends” insert onto the regular part of the song, with Beller and the guitar-strapped Keneally stepping into the spotlight again (as many times during the show). The Beatles insert theatrically stretched into a phenomenal improvised outro jam, a dialogue between Satch’s guitar volleys and Mike Keneally’s mastery on the keyboards.

An effective mix of songs from the new album, like the hugely fun Jumpin’ In slammed out in the second half of the show, followed right after by Jumpin’ Out, or Three Sheets To The Wind, along with famous highlights of Satch’s discography like Ice 9, Flyin’ In A Blue Dream, Satch Boogie, Summer Song, the excellent placement of Surfing With An Alien right at the end of the regular part of the show, and a surprise right at the end with the song Rubina (dedicated to Satch’s wife), taken from Satriani’s studio debut »Not Of This Earth« (1986), created a parallel world of a unique mood. Something you can only expect and experience at Satriani’s concerts. And this one, too, flew by in the blink of an eye. Instantly.

The sound in the room was excellent, too. Even up on the balcony, the partial cutting of the low end wasn’t much of a bother, and that has nothing to do with the sound engineer, who did a great job. Down on the floor, the sound was excellent from the first moment to the last. Now and then Keneally’s keyboards, slightly buried under the riffs, poked at the ear, but when judging the overall impression of the concert’s sound, that’s a totally “painless” remark. So Joe Satriani remains in excellent form, both creatively and on stage. The man keeps his youthful cockiness and enthusiasm in approaching his daily artistic activities! With another one-of-a-kind experience behind us, let’s hope Satriani never loses either of those two character traits, which fuel most of the unique brilliance of the exhibitionism in his guitar playing.