If you love guitars, you will love G3. This concert DVD is a compilation of 4 concerts by a band of guitar gods when they toured the United States in 1996. My only complaint is that it is only 1 hour and 15 minutes long.

Who is G3?

No G3 isn't the name to some new political affiliation of super powers, or a chemical additive that makes candy bars even tastier. It is actually the name to a yearly tour of guitar gods organized by Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Each year, they tour showcasing fantastic guitar skills. This 1996 tour features Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson.

Curriculum Vitae*

Joe Satriani Master of the Ibanez, Satriani is both an extraordinary player and teacher of guitar. He has taught students such as Steve Vai and Kirk Hammet, toured with Mick Jagger and Deep Purple as well as releasing several solo albums.

Steve Vai Satriani's most famous student, Vai has toured with Frank Zappa and David Lee Roth and released several solo albums. His weapon of choice is also the Ibanez.

Eric Johnson Texas born guitar virtuoso, Johnson uses his Fender Stratocaster to play instrumentals that incorporate jazz, fusion new age and even country and western elements. Johnson also has several solo albums to his credit.

(* information gathered from Wikipedia).

G3 - Live In Concert

This concert is basically a guitar god showcase that jams with instrumentals featuring these three virtuoso players doing what they do best.

Joe "Satch" Satriani looks like a space alien with his bald shaven head and dark black sunglasses across his face like some sort of visor. He dresses all in black and plays a black Ibanez. He performs three of his most popular songs Cool # 9, Flying in a Blue Dream and Summer Song. His melodic soulful guitar style is a sight to behold and most definitely one to listen to. In a sentence, Satriani shows in his three songs here why he is the Master.

Eric Johnson does a few songs creating mellow fluid music with his sunburst Fender Stratocaster. He performs three songs, Intro song, Manhattan and SRV (For those living outside guitarland, SRV is a tribute song to the legendary late guitar player Stevie Ray Vaughn.)All three are of course, instrumentals. (Which is good, I'm not a fan of Johnson's singing style). The intro song is just Johnson showing off his guitar skills, Manhattan sounds to me just like mellow jazz. Good mellow jazz! I have to say, although I like Johnson's original songs, I really loved his tribute to Stevie Ray, Johnson really had that blues rock style that SRV was famous for.

Steve Vai performs on his ivory white Ibanez. (humbucking bridge pickup, single coil mid, and humbucking neck pickup) A bassist who also performs percussion joins him along with a keyboard player. Vai just performs a free flow jam ion the guitar, it was amazing to watch his fingers doing hammer on and offs while working the tremelo bar frantically with his other hand. I love the way Vai makes notes just hang in the air waivering up and down until the next note comes along. Watching Steve Vai is like watching a rock concert with nothing but the guitar solos. Vai's style of guitar playing is the sort you could get lost in. He is like a magician of the guitar pulling sounds out that I didn't know were in there. Vai's selection includes Answers, For the Love of God and The Attitude Song. Vai proves he is one of Satriani's star pupils. I half expected him to approach Joe and say, when we last met, I was but the student, and you were the master

The final set of the show features all three guitar players on stage at the same time. Although Satriani and Vai stick with their Ibanez'z Johnson switches from his Strat to a huge hollow body Gibson ES. Johnson's switch adds that fat bluesy sound to the mix. In fact, all the songs they perform have that rich rock blues sound starting with Going Down, My Guitar wants to Kill Your Mama and blues standard Red House. All I can say about the performance of Red House here is that WOW, what a great cover this was. Johnson starts out on the lead with that beautiful fat Gibson wringing the blues out of it while Satriani and Vai provide backing guitar trading licks back and forth. It was also the only song sung in the whole show. Don't worry, even though we have three great guitar players here, the deep pounding beat and growl of bass and drums back the three virtuoso's in traditional blues style.

Audio Quality PCM stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1 surround deliver excellent sound quality, I had no complaints here.

Video Quality The cameras focus here on what guitar lovers want to see. Although stage wide shots and the occasional shot of the drummer, keyboard player and bassist are shown, the cameras most often focus on the fingers and fret boards of the three legendary guitar players. You can see for yourself if they are getting a sound from hammer ons hammer offs note bending, harmonics or just fast picking. Video is of good quality, if not excellent, and it is presented in 4:3.

Summary I can't help but love this concert album. Vai, Satriani and Johnson rock, the video is well done and the sound is superb. If this isn't a five star concert, I don't know what is.

For a complete set of concert DVD reviews, check out
Shopaholic's Concert & Music Video DVD guide.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day