Professor Satch Is Back in Session, Dishing Out Wisdom from His Six-String Bible (2014)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Grado / Diga Nazaro Saurio / Italy
Concert date: July 4, 2014
Attendance: 1000

The ultimate musical wizard and one of the most important musical visionaries of the eighties, who helped popularize the term »guitar rock« and whose work helped many other guitar masters bring their unsuspected talents to the masses in the form of original music, is of course the one and only Joe Satriani. Last year the man released the studio album »Unstoppable Momentum« – RockLine review HERE, which is still relevant this year too. Back in May and June of last year he was already touring European stages, presenting it on May 25, 2014 – RockLine report HERE, on his third stop in Slovenia to date. Satriani first played here on July 9, 2004, as part of the G3 tour, at the time alongside his former student Steve Vai and the magnificent Robert Fripp (King Crimson), and the second time on his solo tour promoting what was then his current studio release, »Black Swans And Wormhole Wizards« – RockLine review HERE. That happened on November 10, 2010 – RockLine report HERE. Joe’s popularity, or more precisely these days his standing among everyone who puts their money on guitar-playing mastery, is neither fading nor letting up. His concerts are still packed with music fans old and young, especially those who revel in Satriani’s great knack for combining highly defined melodies, within which this wizard always resourcefully carves out plenty of room for a show of jaw-dropping guitar tricks. Those remain the main attraction and the thrill of his live shows. At the same time, his tracks (compositional-wise) keep a red thread of tight cohesion running through them, since they leave no room for experimental oddities that would lead to their motifs falling apart. Avant-garde, in other words, is not allowed in. In 2014, too, the man remains welcome on any concert stage. Because he’s in such high demand, he likes to extend his tours. And so he extended the tour promoting the album »Unstoppable Momentum«. The summer dates brought him just a stone’s throw from the Slovenian border, to be exact to an Italian seaside resort town near Monfalcone called Grado, where he played as part of the annual festival cycle »Ospiti Di Autore«.

For this leg of the tour, too, Joe Satriani kept by his side the bandmates who accompanied him on the first part of the tour, when he played Ljubljana with them. The most eye-catching name among them belongs to multi-instrumentalist Mike Keneally, known among other things for his work with Frank Zappa, who has also played Ljubljana before, with Steve Vai. That was on April 13, 2000, at Hala Tivoli in Ljubljana. Alongside Satriani on stage are also the outstanding rhythm duo of German drum grandmaster Marco Minnemann and brilliant American bassist Bryan Beller, who make up two thirds of the wonderfully wacky experimental fusion gang inside the trio The Aristocrats.

Although the clock had long since struck nine, the Diga Nasario Sauro grounds were still relatively empty. Raven Eye took the stage as the support act. American retro-sounding rockers who dig through the archives of simple riff rhetoric from the days when rock was still young, and who build on the usual predictability and trivial construction of their expressive figures with the unbridled voltage of eruptive adrenaline rush, as dictated by the testosterone surplus of young stallions eager to prove themselves! A doomy Sabbath-style echo likes to sneak into the stripped-down, charging riffs, and in terms of garage-y liveliness you could slap labels like MC5 on them. Of course. It’s yet another round of recycling. All that’s missing are the worn-out lumberjack shirts. Someone heard the revival of Wolfmother in them, someone else Graveyard, and a third person quickly tossed in a third fitting association. This kind of revivalism is on the rise and very much in the moment. Garage-y, raw, spiced up, with no serious difficulty when it comes to getting to grips with their musical dossier. No special musical philosophy, nothing you haven’t heard before. Even so, the band made up for the generic feel with heart and a lot of commitment in their playing! With such an unbridled approach, a solid stage dynamic and the delivery of their material, Oli Brown, Sam Weston and Kev Hickman quickly won over the crowd, who sent the band off with some serious applause at the end. As for how well Raven Eye fit with the main star of the evening, there’s no point wasting any more thought on that.

About fifteen minutes to ten in the evening, though, the grounds were properly filled. The stage goes dark, and to a taped intro four masters step out, led by guitar excellence Joe Satriani. The band launches into the song everybody knows and loves! Cool #9. In an instant the crowd is Satch’s!

The grandmaster, in great spirits, who will turn a “round” 58 in a little over a week even though he looks 30 at most, radiated boyish exuberance, mischief, absolute ease and what is his great virtue and trademark. A general positivity that instantly wins over absolutely everyone. No need to say that Joe played this concert, too, without a single mistake. If there was one somewhere, probably only he noticed it. With the bandleader in such a great mood, his three buddies didn’t hold back on the cheerful spirit of great playing ease either. Already the second track in the set, Devil’s Slide (from the album »Engines of Creation«, released in 2000), brought Mike Keneally to the front of the stage, even though he’s primarily in charge of keyboards! Compared to the Keneally who played Ljubljana’s Cvetličarna last year, he has lost a good few pounds. The man, wearing an official Mastodon shirt, has for years been a key element in Satriani’s gradual transition from a strictly »one man band« culture of approaching music to one that radiates team spirit. Satriani’s latest records sound far more like a team effort than the ones the master recorded a good ten years ago and more. Keneally is a master of jazz rock fusion, and realizing his wildest ideas, if not downright experimental avant-garde »shenanigans«, partly inherited from hanging out with Frank Zappa, is a featherlight matter for him. Like munching on hot rolls. Nothing is hidden from him! And Satriani makes the most of it in every single creative adventure. Keneally, who is fully involved in filling out Satriani’s guitar madness, where he usually keeps up the backdrop with keyboards as well as filling the available motivic space of the songs with extra improvisational inserts, often shows up shoulder to shoulder with Satch, accompanying him on guitar. In those spots he even gets a little room to fire off a solo or two. The chemical bond between Satch and Keneally shone more intensely pretty soon. When the new, progressively spirited Three Sheets to the Wind landed on the setlist.

It would be unfair to overlook Satriani’s rhythm section, which plays as if in a trance. If you know the musical reach of the boundless experimentalism of The Aristocrats, and the fact that Minnemann came within an inch of landing in Dream Theater in place of the then “burnt-out” and now “repentant” Portnoy, there’s really no need for further discussion. Especially with the new tracks, where he at times moves deep into flirting with elements of jazz and rock fusion, Satriani showed that for him there are still musical horizons he wants to discover and mature artistically with. One such exceptional moment, thrilling with its remarkable tightness despite the technical difficulty, came in the performance of Lies and Truths. Particularly soft-played Three Sheets to the Wind was also an exceptional treat, an excellent mix of blues, jazz and of course rock, where Satriani’s genius is perfectly topped off by Keneally’s playful improvisations. Here also lies the answer to why the album »Unstoppable Momentum« is so heavily represented in the tour’s repertoire. Simple. The quartet enjoys the team spirit, and the songs of the new album give particularly lots of room for moments of collective jamming. Satriani started steering more heavily in this direction with his adventure in Chickenfoot, where the band (the team) comes first and where an individual’s ego must first bow to the group’s team spirit!

When half the concert had rolled by, Satriani invited everyone present for a ride in a big Cadillac: »Don’t worry. It’s really large Cadillac and you can all fill in!«. Of course, he didn’t forget to remark that the very day of the Grado concert is the American holiday, Independence Day. Well… It’s nice to be a patriot (though not at any cost, but let’s leave the rest of the musings on that topic to Slavoj Žižek). The band then dove into the new Shine On American Dreamer, dedicated to the USA. Let me mention that the band was backed by a huge screen filled with film and animation playback that sensibly added to the sensuality and moods of the individual tracks in the set.

Satch of course seasoned his set with the classics his audience comes for first and foremost! First among them is Flying In A Blue Dream, then Ice 9, Satch Boogie, a surprise in the setlist, the performance of Time Machine, which replaced the newer Jumpin’ In and Jumpin’ Out in the set, played by Satch on a blue Ibanez JS24PCA guitar bearing the red Chickenfoot logo. After that he grabbed a black Ibanez guitar and played the most recognizable song of his career. The one-of-a-kind instrumental evergreen Always with Me, Always with You, then poured oil on the fire in a grandiose close to the regular set with a performance of the title track of his unforgettable album »Surfing With the Alien«, which was in many ways groundbreaking for the world rock scene. The ending of the concert was what you’d expect. With the obligatory encores Crowd Chant and Summer Song and a radically stretched-out »fade-out« featuring three repetitions.

An hour and fifty minutes of walking, with exceptional musical and instrumental aesthetics, the perfect middle line between ultra-melodic catchiness and the free-spirited, mischievous wit of improvisation from the one-of-a-kind master of the six-string bible, left the crowd stunned by the sheer brilliance of the performance. They just wouldn’t stop rewarding the quartet with roaring waves of excitement. Simple as that! The guitar wizard once again delivered the best of what he does. And in that, he remains unique and inimitable.

Setlist

1. Cool #9
2. Devil’s Slide
3. Flying in a Blue Dream
4. Unstoppable Momentum
5. The Weight of the World
6. Ice 9
7. The Crush of Love
8. I’ll Put a Stone on Your Cairn
9. A Door into Summer
10. Lies and Truths
11. Satch Boogie
12. Shine On American Dreamer
13. Three Sheets to the Wind
14. Cryin’
15. Drum solo
16. Time Machine
17. Always with Me, Always with You
18. Surfing with the Alien
—encore—
19. Crowd Chant
20. Summer Song