Joe Satriani - Live In San Francisco DVD Review

Written by Paul Roy
Published December 15, 2004
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The concert was consistently high energy and entertaining. There were noparticular weak spots, but you could criticize Satriani, somewhat, forrarely varying his sound. To the casual listener, all of his songs can tend tosound the same. It's always that same Ibanez guitar, through a Marshal amp,along with his signature distortion, whah-whah, delay, and chorus sound. Thiscan get a little tedious after about an hour, especially for those fans who arenot guitarists themselves, or are not rabid fans of instrumental rock guitar ingeneral. But then again, why would you be at a Joe Satriani concert. This explains part of the appeal and success of the G3 tours, because each guitarist only gets about one hour to blow their load, and then the nextguitarist comes on with a fresh sound and style, which keeps the audience ontheir toes, and begging for more. I would love to see Joe strap on a Les Paul,or an acoustic guitar, for a song or two just to shake things up a little. Satriani skillfully incorporates many different styles into his playing, including speed-metal, rock, prog, and blues, with equal mastery, to create a signature sound that makes him instantly recognizable. "Big Bad Moon" was the only song that featured Joe singing during this show, and this was probably a good thing. Joe's harsh, monotonous vocals may fit this, sort of, novelty song rather well, but it is not something you would want to hear repeatedly.

As usual, Satriani's guitar playing was astonishing — blazingly fast,impeccably precise, and gracefully fluid. He easily leads the pack of instrumental rock guitarists, in terms of songwriting, and guitar technique. The production of this DVD was as impressive as Satriani's guitar playing. The video was exceptionally clear and sharp looking, with no noticeable flaws. The light show was extremely bright and colorful, and this was captured with vivid color detail and accuracy. Only occasionally where the cameras completely overwhelmedby the intensity of the light show, creating some noticeable color washout. The camera work was some of the best I have ever seen for this type of show. Obviously they focused mostly on close-ups of Satriani playing, including extreme close-ups of his hands flying across the fretboard, but they supplemented this nicely with sweeping craned camera shots of the entire stage. Each band member was also given his due during their pertinent parts of the songs. The audio options include an excellent Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, as well as en extremely loud PCM stereo track. The PCM stereo track was mixed at a much higher volume level than the Dolby track and sounded excellent, especially when using my receiver's "all channel stereo" option, which utilizes all six speakers. The DD 5.1 track was equally impressive, and spread the sound almost evenly between the front and rear speakers. The center channel was only used when Satriani talked between songs, and on the one song that he sang. Most importantly, the guitar mix was right up front and right in your face. Stu Hamm's excellent bass playing should have been a little higher in the mix, but the subwoofer was driven adequately. The instrument separation and clarity was excellent. An anamorphic widescreen presentation would have really put this outstanding presentation over the top.

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Joe Satriani - Live In San Francisco DVD Review
Published: December 15, 2004
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Section: Video
Filed Under: Music: Hard Rock, Music: Progressive Rock, Video: Music
Writer: Paul Roy
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#1 — December 15, 2004 @ 14:24PM — SFC Ski

"The first time I ever heard Joe Satriani's brilliant Ibanez tone was via an Armed Forces Network television commercial" Me too! Except the excerpt was from "Crushing Day", and months later an early AM broadcast of "King Biscuit" finally allowed me to find out who played the song. I rushed out and bought "Surfing with the Alien" ASAP.
THanks for the tip, this looks like a winner.

#2 — December 15, 2004 @ 21:59PM — Triniman [URL]

I had the priviledge of interviewing Joe Satriani back in the early 90s. He was totally humble and friendly.

Over the years, I have lost touch with his music, but when I saw him in concert, I was in heaven. He is an outstanding virtuoso and worthy of discovery, if you call yourself a fan of the electric rock guitar.

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