On Wednesday, October 8th, guitar legend Joe Satriani performed an amazing concert at the Chicago Theater.
American hard rock band Mountain opened the show for Satriani. Corky Laing, Leslie West, and Rev Jones played a couple Mountain originals and a couple of cover songs, before they ended with a crowd favorite, “Mississippi Queen.”
The lights dimmed once again as the main act started. Fingers blazing, Joe walked out on stage playing “I Just Wanna Rock,” a hit from his new album. An LED screen, wired with hundreds of little lights, wrote I Just Wanna Rock across the screen in time with the music. The first song really set the bar high for the rest of the concert.
Satriani then proceeded to play a couple of old favorites including, “Satch Boogie” and “Ice 9.” Everyone was up on their feet as soon as Joe walked out on stage. After some classic songs, Joe played a few tunes of his new album, Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock.
Many more new songs and old favorites were played including “Super Colossal” and “Andalusia” The band then left the stage, but was called back for a couple more songs including “Crowd Chant,” a call and response song featuring the audience. Satch ended his performance with “Summer Song.”
Being a huge fan, it was really cool to be able to see all of my favorite riffs being played in person. I had fourth row tickets, and it was mind blowing to see his fingers move that fast and accurately. Satriani is truly an incredible guitarist, and he made all of his songs sound so easy. It was also cool to see how much fun the band was having onstage.
For the final encore, Mountain’s guitarist and Lead singer, Leslie West, was brought back onstage. The tech staff brought Satriani a guitar matching West’s. Jeff Beck’s “Goin’ Down” was the encore song. Instead of playing a typical guitar solo, both guitarists took an extended solo, and they played a solo cooperatively.
In my opinion this concert could not have gotten any better. Mountain was a great opener and really set the mood for Satriani. Joe’s song choice was excellent, and was much better than I had expected. The crowd and musicians stayed lively the whole time and everyone was having fun. It was my first real rock concert and it was an experience of a lifetime.
--Submitted by Bradley Wilson, Staff Reporter |
