Satch Vai - Dancing

That was a fun show!

Caught most of Animals As Leaders set, little hard to make out what they were doing the first half but FOH got them sorted out after a bit. Those low strings just turn to mush live. Both dudes using real amps, Tosin using those Zuta amps and I think a Morgan combo with the other dude using an Engle/AxeFX III halfstack. That was the most I’ve ever heard of their music, most of Tosin’s playing I’ve heard has been in vids where he’s the only one playing, they’re djentier than I expected. Cool but not really my thing at this point in life, great players obviously.

The SatchVai set started with the singles they’ve been putting out and it sets up the show to let you know it’s not just a Vai or just a Satch show. Vai’s tone was a bit thin and I figured they’d get that sorted but it never really happened. Satch fucking swallowed him whole, he practically swallowed everyone on that stage, his amps just cover the full frequency of the guitar while Vai’s was all highs and mids. Satch definitely designed that amp around being the sole focal point onstage.

Pete killed it, the only bummer I had was that the spotlight wasn’t on him as much as it was Vai and Satch because that dude was juggling crazy tones and playing with only a breather song here and there. When looking at my pics this morning I had to chuckle-

Inside Pete’s head- “Ok Pete, ground yourself, that IS Steve Vai right there and you ARE playing onstage with him…..”
View attachment 61985

“Fuckin a right I’m rockin’ this audience with Steve Vai and standing toe to toe with him!”
View attachment 61986

I didn’t grab many pics or videos as usual, but it was well worth the ticket price. There’s a ton of improv going on, even when it doesn’t seem like it and more than it’s two guys trying to show the world they still got it, it’s two lifelong friends celebrating this silly guitar shit with a bunch of people who are just as stoked to hear and watch them celebrate it.

Wholesome and endearing, it’s awesome that I’ve gotten to grow up with these dudes as my idols and it’s hard not to feel like a 14 year old again when I see them live. There was a dude in his 20’s next to me just flipping out over Vai, wiping tears from his face every few minutes, it was like looking into a time machine. Hahahahaha at one point he says “I am only sad because there is no NDSP on the stage”, we hadn’t actually spoke yet so I told him Pete’s using one and he got all excited and then I pointed at my shirt shaking my head and he started laughing, I was wearing a Fractal shirt. :rofl

That was the 4th time I’ve seen Vai perform the Hydra song and man, it’s such second nature to him that he’s just going apeshit at the end and throwing a ton of improv into it, with the 3 necks and it was a great example of how a video will never convey how awesome the actual experience is, the low end on the bass neck was pretty cranked and you’d feel it when he’d hit it, making the performance that much more immersive, like it forced you to acknowledge what he was doing, where a video will just give you the visual and a stereo audio track

I guess I have 2 gripes- I don’t know what it is with Vai and Satch picking the worst cover songs to jam on, but my lord, no one needs to hear “Born To Be Wild” or “Rockin In A Free World”, no matter how many notes get thrown in. It’d be so much cooler to hear them do a Zep tune or something not so generic that might be tied to guitar a bit more.
Imagine being PT on that stage

Joe: "Take a solo, Pete"
Steve: "Take a solo, Pete"

Pete:
Schitts Creek No GIF by CBC
 
Imagine being PT on that stage

Joe: "Take a solo, Pete"
Steve: "Take a solo, Pete"

Pete:
Schitts Creek No GIF by CBC

Hahahahha it was surely daunting at first but he held it DOWN, man.

I’ve seen some great dudes with both Vai and Satch, Keneally and Macalpine in particular, but Pete has that rock background that makes him fit in perfectly. It’s kinda funny how that element really glues shit together. In all that technical precision there’s an underlying rock n roll element that too much polish gets in the way of and I know it’s funny to say that in the context of a Vai/Satch show, but at the heart of it they’re loud ass guitar players rockin’ out, they’re just really fucking good.
 
Imagine being PT on that stage

Joe: "Take a solo, Pete"
Steve: "Take a solo, Pete"

Pete:
Schitts Creek No GIF by CBC
He doesn't even get the chance hah - In the show I went, he only got one solo spot - he was a rock solid rhythm player for all of the set, which makes sense - this is a a Satch Vai show not a G3.
 
That was a fun show!

Caught most of Animals As Leaders set, little hard to make out what they were doing the first half but FOH got them sorted out after a bit. Those low strings just turn to mush live. Both dudes using real amps, Tosin using those Zuta amps and I think a Morgan combo with the other dude using an Engle/AxeFX III halfstack. That was the most I’ve ever heard of their music, most of Tosin’s playing I’ve heard has been in vids where he’s the only one playing, they’re djentier than I expected. Cool but not really my thing at this point in life, great players obviously.

The SatchVai set started with the singles they’ve been putting out and it sets up the show to let you know it’s not just a Vai or just a Satch show. Vai’s tone was a bit thin and I figured they’d get that sorted but it never really happened. Satch fucking swallowed him whole, he practically swallowed everyone on that stage, his amps just cover the full frequency of the guitar while Vai’s was all highs and mids. Satch definitely designed that amp around being the sole focal point onstage.

Pete killed it, the only bummer I had was that the spotlight wasn’t on him as much as it was Vai and Satch because that dude was juggling crazy tones and playing with only a breather song here and there. When looking at my pics this morning I had to chuckle-

Inside Pete’s head- “Ok Pete, ground yourself, that IS Steve Vai right there and you ARE playing onstage with him…..”
View attachment 61985

“Fuckin a right I’m rockin’ this audience with Steve Vai and standing toe to toe with him!”
View attachment 61986

I didn’t grab many pics or videos as usual, but it was well worth the ticket price. There’s a ton of improv going on, even when it doesn’t seem like it and more than it’s two guys trying to show the world they still got it, it’s two lifelong friends celebrating this silly guitar shit with a bunch of people who are just as stoked to hear and watch them celebrate it.

Wholesome and endearing, it’s awesome that I’ve gotten to grow up with these dudes as my idols and it’s hard not to feel like a 14 year old again when I see them live. There was a dude in his 20’s next to me just flipping out over Vai, wiping tears from his face every few minutes, it was like looking into a time machine. Hahahahaha at one point he says “I am only sad because there is no NDSP on the stage”, we hadn’t actually spoke yet so I told him Pete’s using one and he got all excited and then I pointed at my shirt shaking my head and he started laughing, I was wearing a Fractal shirt. :rofl

That was the 4th time I’ve seen Vai perform the Hydra song and man, it’s such second nature to him that he’s just going apeshit at the end and throwing a ton of improv into it, with the 3 necks and it was a great example of how a video will never convey how awesome the actual experience is, the low end on the bass neck was pretty cranked and you’d feel it when he’d hit it, making the performance that much more immersive, like it forced you to acknowledge what he was doing, where a video will just give you the visual and a stereo audio track

I guess I have 2 gripes- I don’t know what it is with Vai and Satch picking the worst cover songs to jam on, but my lord, no one needs to hear “Born To Be Wild” or “Rockin In A Free World”, no matter how many notes get thrown in. It’d be so much cooler to hear them do a Zep tune or something not so generic that might be tied to guitar a bit more.
In the show I went to - Animals as Leaders (I'm already a fan) was great but the sound in the venue was crap - but man does that bass really hit - their visual light show was way more interesting than in the Satch Vai set.

But yes, with the crap sound it was kinda though to hear what they were playing exactly.

"Born to be wild" - hah yes - but unfortunately that's what the crowd reacted more strongly to in the whole set well maybe Crowd Chant was bigger
 
In the show I went to - Animals as Leaders (I'm already a fan) was great but the sound in the venue was crap - but man does that bass really hit - their visual light show was way more interesting than in the Satch Vai set.

But yes, with the crap sound it was kinda though to hear what they were playing exactly.

"Born to be wild" - hah yes - but unfortunately that's what the crowd reacted more strongly to in the whole set well maybe Crowd Chant was bigger

Hahahahahah those lights AAL had were awesome!!! At first I said to my buddy “Are those hubcaps?” but halfway through the set when they got some fog on the stage and started actually using them they had those awesome 3D effects with the beams, REALLY fucking cool!
 
Caught most of Animals As Leaders set, little hard to make out what they were doing the first half but FOH got them sorted out after a bit. Those low strings just turn to mush live. Both dudes using real amps, Tosin using those Zuta amps and I think a Morgan combo with the other dude using an Engle/AxeFX III halfstack.
I saw them live a couple-ish years ago in India where they were both using FM9s, and they sounded AMAZING, even though the venue is known to have shit acoustics. Just goes to show that in some cases modellers DO sound better, especially when the music was written for/through digital modellers. Tosin might enjoy the tube rig for himself, but the natural sag of something like a Morgan isn't built for 7-8 string downtuned djent. Can it sound cool? sure. But I'm not sure its the best vehicle for the kind of music AAL write and perform.

On a separate but related note, did you catch a glimpse of Steve's new Olympic White PIA that has no tone knob?
 
Back
Top