Music legend Joe Satriani is coming back to his eternal promised land

Forty-six years later, Joe Satriani still remembers the fateful day when Birmingham became his promised land. It was February 25, 1974, and the future maestro of instrumental guitar was an unknown teenager, crushed into New York’s Nassau Coliseum as the mighty Black Sabbath shook the earth. “It was mayhem,” reflects Satriani. “People starting fires, bottles of booze flying. You feared for your life, while having the time of your life. I just couldn’t believe how good Sabbath sounded. So, as a kid, from an American’s perspective, I was always wondering what Birmingham was really like.”

The fascination has never left him. the Grammy-nominated guitarist returns to Symphony Hall in April 2021: a venue so familiar and beloved to Satriani that the show almost feels like a homecoming. The evening might start in the Midlands, but as long-time fans know, an evening with Satch takes the audience on a voyage of sound, as the man widely considered the planet’s most dazzling guitarist pushes his instrument into uncharted waters of mood, melody and virtuosity. There’ll be highlights from this year’s acclaimed 17th album, ‘Shapeshifting’, he promises, along with fan favourites from his ten-million-selling back catalogue. “Some songs, I’ve been working on for thirty years. I’m still trying to figure out how to play them.”

‘Shapeshifting’ is an apt album title for an artist as creatively restless as Satriani. Following an early gig as guitar tutor to the stars – he counted fellow wizard Steve Vai amongst his students – the native New Yorker moved coasts to San Francisco in the late-70s and hit the radar with the Squares. Yet it was 1986’s solo debut ‘Not of This Earth’ that announced Satriani’s talent, and the following year’s million-selling ‘Surfing with The Alien’ that made him the hottest guitar hero since Eddie Van Halen.

Yet ‘Alien’ didn’t come easy. “Before it was released, the world was not interested in a guitar instrumental record,” reflects Satriani, of the classic album that includes ‘Satch Boogie’, ‘Always With Me, Always With You’ and the high-velocity title track whose two-hand tapping section raised the bar for gunslingers across the world. “We weren’t getting a lot of moral support from the record label, and everyone gave us grief, like, ‘Nobody wants this’. But when ‘Surfing with The Alien’ came out, suddenly everyone loved us.”

For Satriani, the massive sales of ‘Alien’ allowed him creative freedom, and he’s chased his muse to the outer limits ever since. Everyone has their favourite moments, from the heartfelt solos of 1989’s ‘Flying in A Blue Dream’ to the raw power of 1992’s ‘The Extremist’. “That album was my love letter to classic rock,” he reflects, “even if it came out as grunge was exploding. Then there was ‘Engines of Creation’ in 2000 – which turned into a techno record.”

Across his four-decade career, Satriani has never released an album as evocative as ‘Shapeshifting’, whose tracks take in the visceral riffing of ‘Big

Distortion’, the harmony-soaked groove of ‘Falling Stars’ and the ska chop of ‘Here the Blue River’. “I came across this beautiful poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson called ‘The River’, but I don’t know why it inspired that reggae feel,” he reflects. “At the same time, I don’t mind writing a song like ‘Big Distortion’, which has no deep meaning, it’s just a truthful expression of what happened – I picked up my guitar and it sounded great. Some songs are light, others are heavy and carry a deep message. But life is a mixture of light and dark too.”

He’ll show you magic in the studio, but it’s onstage that Satriani truly soars. Live music, he says, was a constant presence through his formative years. “I remember seeing the Mahavishnu Orchestra on the ‘Birds of Fire’ tour, and to me, those were the best four musicians I’d seen in my life. I’d never heard anyone handle the time like that. I saw Allan Holdsworth play in a teeny club. I saw Emerson, Lake & Palmer play to 80,000 people, and that was amazing too. I could go on and on. So many shows.”

Satriani’s own visits to Symphony Hall could be mentioned in the same breath. This time around, the guitarist plans to travel light and let his fingers do the talking, with a lean setup comprising several variants from his Ibanez JS signature guitar line, along with his preferred Marshall JVM 100-watt head, Axe-Fx III processor and pedals including the Vox Big Bad Wah and Electro-Harmonix Micro POG. “It’s a pretty old-school setup, compared to what people are doing these days,” he shrugs. “But a nice guitar, with a nice amp, mic’d by somebody who knows what they’re doing, still sounds just amazing.”

When people come to a Satriani show, though, they expect guitar pyrotechnics. Doesn’t that bring pressure? “Well, it’s a good kind of pressure,” he considers. “I like that pressure. I force myself to play that way anyway, whether there’s an audience around or not. But it’s not about the speed or the number of notes. Live, I’m trying to create a musical moment. The music should be experiential, cathartic and explosive. Sometimes, I need to play a lot of notes really fast. Other times, I need to play the slowest I possibly can. Music and technique – the two things work together. If you use those tools at the right time, then it’s perfect. And if you use them at the wrong time, then you’re an idiot, y’know!”

Almost a half-century after Ozzy and co blew his mind, Satriani is ready to return the favour in Birmingham. “Playing live is still so important to me,” he concludes. “When you finish recording an album, you’re just dying to play it in front of people, figure out what the songs are really about. And there’s no substitute for playing a venue like the Birmingham Symphony Hall.” You can’t make that feeling up at home. You just have to go out there and do it. And I have no idea what’s going to happen…” Joe Satriani will now play Symphony Hall on Friday, April 30, 2021. For more information, visit https://www.thsh.co.uk/event/joe-satriani