I love Satriani. I've always respected the hell out of him, and he was a major influence on my musical thought. As I read the posts defending this performance, and the way you are doing it, I keep wondering, if you were in a band with someone who performed a song like the worst of his performance here, how would you feel? If Satriani hired a musician to be on stage with him, and that player played like that, what would he think? Would you be critical of Joe firing another guitarist for playing like that, would the fact that the guitarist is a friend of Joe's and is having a good time on change make him immune from criticism?
I think Satriani deserves all the recognition in the world for being the transcendant musician he is, but I couldn't stand his performance here. Eddie Van Halen's technique is, to me, difficult to reproduce, the spirit of it, the swagger, the flow, the musicality, etc. Maybe he's the most important, radical, revolutionary modern guitarist? I don't know, but no matter what it's no small feat to fill his shoes. To me, it completely makes sense that David Lee Roth, after performing with this genius, had to move on to another genius, Steve Vai, then another genius, Jason Becker. I mean, that's what it takes of you want to be in the same league. And to be clear, I think Satriani is easily in the same league.
I think it would be cool for Satriani in this instance just to be himself completely, and just reinterpret the songs entirely his way. I love him for his personality in his playing, his craftsmanship, respect for the instrument, compositional thought, creativity...I could go on. And for the moments I could see him just playing the Van Halen songs his way, I think he sounded fantastic.
I think the defense of the stumbling parts of his performance is really, really fucked up though. It is okay to recognize a bad performance and just leave it at that. I feel like there's a cult of personality thing going on here, and I think that's crap; to me it's disrespectful and gang like.
I can hold these two thoughts in my head at the same time:
I love and respect the musicianship of Joe Satriani.
I thought his performance on this video was at times awful.
I've seen a phenomenon on the interenet in which criticism of any rock star is religiously shut down gang style, where any dissent can only come from a jealous hack who knows nothing about music. The goal is to shut down discussion of the substance by making any serious discussion itself a test of loyalty instead, on the terms set by the most strident voices. And that's such crap, as if none of you have ever heard someone stumbling through a musical performance and that it was horrible.
My criticial opinion on this is just as valid as your noncritical opinion. If I have no right in your minds to be crticial of one of my heroes, you equally have no right to defend him. We all just need to sit here quitely and never discuss whether anything is good or bad in art, right? Or we should just sit quietly if we think it's bad? Or just if you think it's good and I think it's bad? If the internet or guitar forums in particular are places where we have to praise absolutely everything everyone famous has ever done or ever will do, I have no respect for that. It's just bullshit.
I mean, great guitarists sound like shit sometimes; shit happens. And that doesn't mean anything except it's one shitty performance, or one shitty part of a good performance or whatever. But no matter someone's stature or age or accomplishments, it's okay to recognize freaking reality. And it's okay to talk about it, with respect. And I can hear some one responding with, "well, how many gold albums have you released?" Well, if that's the standard for musical discussion, I want no part of that either. We're all music fans here, and we come here to talk about it.
We fans of Satriani didn't fall in love with his music and playing because of performances like the worst parts of this. And yes, I understand the context; it's been pointed out several times in this thread. I think it's also okay for him to say, "I'm still learning some of these songs, and I can't play this one well yet." He's got enormous clout and stature, and he could pull that off just fine. And I'm sure everyone in the studio would've respected that.
And I'm still interested to see how he pulls off these songs in the future, because I'll just bet he wasn't exactly happy with his performance.
One argument I cannot stand is the "well, is he having a good time?" argument. Musical performance to me is truly a sacred thing, something deserving respect and craft and drive and study and understanding. I'm attracted to my favorite music because it moves me, not because someone was having a good time on stage.
So I'm interested to see now if my post leads to a bunch of passive aggressive attacks. I like this forum in general because the spirit of discussions here seem in general to be open and not cult like, but I do not at all like the vibe of this thread. But I contribute a little to this forum here and there, and I do have thoughts on this, whether or not some of you find my feelings or my nerve to express them personally offensive.
