Satriani Live!

by William Ruhlmann

Drawn from a concert recorded May 3, 2006, at the Grove in Anaheim, CA, Joe Satriani's Satriani Live! comes as both a double-CD and a simultaneously (and separately) released DVD. The audio version presents more than two hours of typical Satriani guitar work. He was promoting his latest album, Super Colossal, but that didn't prevent him from casting back across his career for selections from such previous sets as Joe Satriani (1995), The Extremist (1992), Flying in a Blue Dream (1989), and particularly Surfing with the Alien (1987), making this a de facto best-of. The crowd was wildly enthusiastic, and Satriani wasted little time doing anything other than playing, pausing only occasionally to talk about his guitar and his guitar picks. The first disc maintains a steady pace, but the guitarist varied the mood in the second half of the show, turning to what pass for ballads in his repertoire ("The Meaning of Love," "Made of Tears," "Circles," "Always with Me, Always with You") before revving up for a powerful finish. Casual fans can pick this up as a good sampler of the entire Satriani catalog, while more intense fans will enjoy noting differences between the live versions and the studio recordings with which they're already familiar.