Satch Vai Band - Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow 17th June 2025

The two were joined by legendary musicians to complete the band, with Pete Thorn on rhythm guitar, Marco Mendoza on bass and occasional vocals, and Kenny Aronoff on drums. Pete Thorn is arguably the lesser-known musician in the lineup, at least to the non-guitar-aficionados (of which there were few). However, he is a fantastic musician and guitar player, with his own instrumental albums worth checking out. Marco Mendoza has played and recorded with huge stadium bands, notably Journey and Thin Lizzey, whilst Kenny Aronoff is essentially the go-to drummer for almost any rock band, having played on over 60 grammy nominated recordings. The standard of musicianship couldn’t be much better.

The show opened with a short set from Ned Evett. He was clearly chosen to suit a guitarist crowd for his unique style of playing, on his unique style of guitars. The guitars he played were completely fretless, with one of them being made from pure glass, presumably very heavy. He played with an attached slide in opening tunings, in which he used Hendrix-style double stops and ornamentation over, paired with an octave pedal, giving it a bit more character. His voice was also great. Although I really love purely instrumental music (especially when the instrumentalist is so skilled) I thought the singing added lot to his set. He used a backing track for each of his songs, which (although an accompanying band would have been better) worked well. He finished off the set with a homage to Jimi Hendrix, playing ‘Are You Experienced?’.

Next was the main event. The smoke machines were rolling, the lights were dimmed, and Satch and Vai walked onto the stage and began playing ‘I Wanna Play my Guitar’. This was one of the few tunes in which there was singing, which Marco Mendoza did a great job with. However, all the attention was directed at Satch and Vai, ensured by the two spotlights. This was one of the two songs written specifically for the band, the other being ‘Sea of Emotion’ which followed thereafter.

It was a total tour de force of electric guitar playing, with guitar harmonies and unisons balancing perfectly off each other. My only critique of when the two played together was that Joe Satriani was far louder than Steve Vai – I’m not sure if this was because of the area we were sitting in, but I struggled to hear Vai at some points. Pete Thorn, being on the other side of the stage was even harder to hear, which was a shame, especially during his handful of solos. However, when Vai was playing his own music, I could hear him just fine, which was what was important.

After they played their opening songs together, Satch left the stage, to leave Steve to play the songs ‘Zeus in Chains’, making use of a seven string, and ‘Little Pretty’ with a flamboyant hollow body Gretsch guitar – a shift from his usual style, but one which suited the music, with its more jazzy chordal ideas.

Satch then returned to stage where they combined Satriani’s ‘Ice 9’ and Vai’s ‘The Crying Machine’ turning these two solo pieces of music into one unified duo. Vai departed from stage and left Satch to play ‘Flying in a Blue Dream’ and ‘Surfing with the Alien’. It was flawless. Vai returned to the stage once more during Satriani’s third solo song ‘Sahara’, in which they played together again. Satriani left stag again to let Steve play ‘Tender Surrender’. This is one of my favourite Vai songs, and one of his best-known ones, containing maybe the best guitar lick ever written (skip to 2:26 on the recording and you’ll hear it). It was amazing to hear this played live. Next Steve played ‘Teeth of the Hydra’, with his custom Hydra guitar. This is a three necked guitar, including a bass neck (with a fretless E and A string), a standard neck, and another standard neck, half of which is fretless. There is also a harp attached to it. It is admittedly a bit over the top. However, Steve Vai, despite this pretentiousness, can really play it. The skill it takes to play what is essentially a new instrument like that and make it sound good demonstrates his ability.

Satch finished his solo stuff just after, ending with ‘Satch Boogie’ and ‘If I could Fly’, my favourite Satch tune. Steve then began playing ‘For the Love of God’, with Satch playing rhythm and harmony alongside. The climax of the tune had me in tears. If anyone says that you can’t play emotionally whilst shredding a million notes per second, I’d play them this track.

Finally, ‘Always with Me, Always with You’ was played to end the set. I was in a state of awe as the show ended. It was one of the best live experiences I’ve had. The two came on for an encore, where they started playing lines on the guitar, which the crowd chanted back (until they became way too hard to sing). This was followed by Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ and then ‘Born to be Wild’, giving Mendoza a chance to return on vocals for a rocky end to the night.

Despite the volume of Satch somewhat overbearing Steve’s at some points during the night, the show was extraordinary, and it was surreal to see two illustrious guitarists, whose masterclasses and online interviews and lessons I have watched repeatedly, stand and play, and clearly enjoy it so much.