Whoa! A new 2012 G3 Tour is in the works for Australia and New Zealand featiuring Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Steve Lukather(!). They are currently scheduled to perform on April 6th at Australia's Byron Bay Bluesfest. I'll post more details as they become available.
I saw the G3 show last night at the Congress Theater in Chicago, and
was completely blown away. Talk about getting your money's worth. The
current incarnation of G3 for 2007 features Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, and of course Joe Satriani. Each guy played an amazing set of tunes, before all 3 got together at the end for some great jams.
Paul
Gilbert opened the show, and his set was my favorite of the night. He
played several songs from his latest album, Get Out Of My Yard, plus
some Racer X tunes, his solo tune Space Ship One, and some Mr. Big stuff
at the end. Bruce Bouillet
(Paul's old partner-in-crime from Racer X) is playing second guitar in
Paul's band for this tour, and he's one of the reason's I liked this
set so much.
Bruce was AWESOME. He's playing better than ever, and the
inclusion of a second guitar really enhanced the tunes. It was so cool
to hear Scarified, for example, done up right with the original
guitar harmonies. Bruce added harmony lines to the Get Out Of My Yard
tunes also, and had several great solos (ie. the outro to Radiator). He was whipping out some awesome Zakk Wylde-esque pentatonics,
and lots of cool string-skipping and hybrid-picking licks too. I
definitely want to hear more from Bruce in the future. Paul's playing
was incredible all night. It sounds like a cliche, but he makes
everything look easy. I prefer his playing now to when he first came
on the scene with Racer X back in the mid-80's. He has a real strong
blues/classic rock influence in his phrasing that wasn't there 20 years
ago. His bending and vibrato are always dead on, and the dynamics in
his touch sound very mature. Having said that, he was also shredding
his brains out. His fast picked stuff was so punchy and tight that you
felt like you were getting kicked in the chest on some of his runs. All
his fast stuff was squeaky clean. His playing on Rusty Old Boat was
particularly good. Very cool, funky phrasing with awesome shredding as
well. Paul's wife Emi took a nice keyboard solo on that song also. Overall, Gilbert's band had a fun, enthusiastic presence
that made them sound like they've been playing together for a long
time. This was a well-rehearsed, tight band that was fun to watch.
John Petrucci
came up next, and if I had to describe his set in one word, it would be
HEAVY. His opening
tune, Jaws Of Life, was the heaviest thing I have
ever heard. Petrucci played a seven-string Ernie Ball guitar on that song, and some others, which made things even heavier. However, on some tunes, it was so heavy and loud, that it was hard to discern what
was being played. He did play a couple of lighter songs as well; Lost
Without You was really good. But overall, Petrucci's set had the effect
of a heavy metal freight train bearing down on you. His solos were
great, but some of his picked runs were just a blur. This was
especially true if he was using the neck pickup, and the run had
smaller intervals. Petrucci was backed up by Dave LaRue on bass, and Mike Portnoy on drums. LaRue had several nice solos (LaRuuuuuuue!), and Portnoy
was just a mad-man. What a great drummer. He was throwing sticks all
over the place, and was just generally beating the crap out of his kit.
He and Petrucci were both very popular with the crowd (I saw lots of Dream Theater t-shirts).
Joe
Satriani's band played last (Double-duty Dave LaRue played bass for
Satriani also). I really liked Satriani's set. He mentioned Surfing
With The Alien was released 20 years ago, so he played several songs
from that album. Ice 9 and Circles were both great. My favorite song
from his set was Cool #9. The thing I dig about Satriani is his use of old-school blues licks, and Cool #9 was a great example
of this. When he goes into pentatonic box territory, the bends, vibrato, and
phrasing are always very solid and authentic-sounding. Another fun tune
was Crowd Chant. In this song, Satch plays a line, then has the crowd
repeat it back to him. The audience was way into it.
One of the
fun parts of G3 of course is the big jam at the end. After Satriani's
final song (Always With Me, Always With You), he went immediately into
a slow major-sounding three chord vamp. Petrucci then walked on and
played a very cool solo that kept building and building. Then Gilbert
came on played a fantastic solo with some of his patented
string-skipping triad lines. Very cool. They then played a Hendrix
tribute that consisted of Foxy Lady, Purple Haze, and a snippet of Voodoo
Chile. After that it was the Jeff Beck classic Going Down, and finally
Jumping Jack Flash closed the show. Satriani sang Going Down, and
Gilbert sang the others (Gilbert's vocals on Jumping Jack Flash were
really great). Going Down was my favorite jam of the night. All 3 guys
sounded great on this tune. I kind of wish they'd play some different
stuff for these jams though. These are great tunes, but they've
been doing Hendrix songs for years now. There are lots of classic
instrumental guitar jams they could play too (speaking of Jeff Beck,
how about playing Freeway Jam or Led Boots for a change?). Regardless,
the jams did not disappoint. Gilbert was wailing,
and he seemed to enjoy listening to the other guys play too. At one
point, after Petrucci played a wicked fast-picking run, Gilbert used
his classic pick-enabled drill to counter Petrucci's attack. Too funny.
This
was an awesome night of guitar craziness. I'm not 100% sure of this,
but I heard they won't be filming any of these shows for a DVD. That's
too bad, because it would sell like hotcakes if they did. If this
version of G3 comes to your town, you must go see it. Highly recommended.
The 2007 incarnation of G3 will feature Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, and Paul Gilbert (!) The new tour will kick off March 14th in Phoenix, with more US dates throughout March and April. There are 5 dates confirmed so far, with more to follow shortly.
The G3 tour of Latin America is complete. This version of the G3 lineup included Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, and Eric Johnson. Here is a forum thread with a review (and pics) of the final show in Rio De Janeiro Brazil:
Next up for G3 is a short tour of Australia starting in late November. This time the lineup will be Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and John Petrucci. Here are the dates:
Wed Nov 29th - Brisbane, Australia - Brisbane Convention Centre Fri Dec 1st - Sydney, Australia - Hordern Pavillion Sat Dec 2nd - Melbourne, Australia - Regent Theater Sun Dec 3rd - Melbourne, Australia - Regent Theater Wed Dec 6th - Adelaide, Australia - Entertainment Centre Fri Dec 8th - Perth, Australia - Challenge Stadium
