well the chicago show was grand. It made me feel the way I did the first time I heard SWTA. You know, goosebumps, jaw dropped, I cant believe what I'm hearing. I forgot who asked, but crushing day to me was flawless. After they finished ice 9, mike manning put a chair on the stage. Joe said " your probobly all wondering what the chair is for ". He went on to tell a story of how when he was recording the song, he was always sitting in a chair with the guitar way up high when he played the solo and that maybe the reason the song never went so well live is because he was never sitting down. So when it came time for the solo...he sat down in the chair and played it perfectly.

Goodnight friends Van Halen News conference here:

Stupid Stupid webshots wont let me upload...they new and improved it now you press the button to find the picture you want and nothing happens and you can't get in touch with em

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

If anyone knows where their offices are or knows anyone there...tell em to get it sorted for me please.

So

Hi Joe....Oh my word I hope you are having a fantastic time on this lil mini tour...i so wish I could be there and I really hope you make it over here soon...

god joe what an amazing you show you put on tonight. that had to be the best birthday gift ever. i was hoping to meet up with you after the show like i did at the grove but i had to leave. oh well if you happened to notice a Blonde kid with kinda long hair in the crowd on stage right, rocking out..yeah that was me. yeah my name's Kenny. thanks for such an amazing show. it'll be something i'll remember forever as seeing Satch on my birthday. hope to meet you again soon. peace.

Stevee T, thanks for touring me all around Long Island and pointing out the sites including the homes of the geetar stars, Satch, Vai Stevens petrucci and randy Jackson..... You should create and market a map for a tour LMAO

PS re previous post,

Clarky, balducci sez hi!!!!

WOOO!!

Webmaster Jon, your pictures of last nights show at the Roxy are GREAT!!! You always get such wonderful shots :)

What kind of camera do you use? Course, a person hasta also know HOW to use it, LOL....

joe, thanks for sharing that show with us last night. first time I've seen you in LA and first time I've seen you at all in a while. sometimes I need to be reminded why you're the best guitarist out there.

I got a kick out of seeing you on a stage that I've played on before, although it was low so it was really hard to see your fingers in action. I think the highlight of my show was as Dave was playing his bass solo, a guy next to me shouted "STUUUUUUUU!" he got about 5 dirty looks, hahaha.

<guitarman13> im eating jello

<joesatriani> jello!

<guitarman13> JELLO!!!!!!!

It pays to eat Jello and chat ;-)

So...SATCH AT THE ROXY! :-)

This was my 17th Joe show, and it was by FAR the best sounding. Both the stage volume and the mix were perfect. Joe was ON...this may be the best I've ever seen him play.

When I first heard the setlist, I was a bit bummed that it included post-SWTA songs. My original hope was that it would have been a true throwback to the 1987-1988 era, with Joe only playing songs he had released up to that point in time (stuff from NOTE and SWTA, basically). But I have to say I think the way Joe did it worked out better. It's cool to see (hear) SWTA as a point in Satch's career that really launched everything else. So...it was excellent.

It was nice to meet Mahavishnu at the show... evbro, I didn't know you were there too. Did you see me by any chance? You should've said hello...

Well, I'll make more show-specific comments in my next post.

The setlist was the same as I saw posted here for another show:

Surfing With the Alien album
Flying in a Blue Dream
Cool #9
Super Colossal
Summer Song

I liked the length of the show. It wasn't too short like G3, but it wasn't as long as some of the single-set Joe shows I've seen either. Of course I'd love to see a crazy four-hour Satch show, but I think the length of this one was good. It was long enough to not feel short, but it was short enough where Joe and the band could go to 11 and not be burned out by the end of the night.

I didn't know Joe was going to make comments between each song (except between Hill of the Skull and Circles, which were talked about together before HOTS...that was a very nice surprise. And I'm glad he stuck to his game plan even though the venue got kinda loud. I'm sure some people weren't listening, but I know the majority of us were. So...thanks, Joe. :-)

I've posted on here before that the Searching I heard in Ventura on 4/8/05 is my favorite live Satch moment. That's still the case after this show, but I have to say Crushing Day from this show comes VERY close...the improv solo at the end of the song was killer. Another Joe highlight for me was the harmonic intro he played before Echo...

Jeff was amazing...this is one of the better shows I've seen him do. He was great at the G3 shows I saw earlier this year but he topped those last night. I think his best bit of drumming last night was during the build-up to the Always... jam. He did this fill that went over to the floor toms and my mouth was on the floor.

Dave looked REALLY into the show...it was cool. My favorite moment from him would be his slap bass stuff in Ice Nine.

Galen sounded great...I usually watch shows from Joe's side of the stage, so I don't hear much of him. But he was mixed well tonight, and he was into the show. It was good. Dave and Galen were playing these cool jazzy chords they were playing underneath parts of Satch Boogie that sounded way cool. The mix during the show was so good...it was awesome to be able to hear little things like this.

Joe and the band were so tight. I know they played a lot of SWTA stuff on the G3 tour earlier this year, but this was only their third of four SWTA shows and I couldn't believe how good they sounded...even on stuff that hasn't been played in a few years (Crushing Day) or much longer (Hill of the Skull, Echo).

Let's see...what else?

Joe dedicated Ice Nine to Kurt Vonnegut.

The Always... jam included the Raspberry Jam Delta-V riff, and the Circles jam included the riff from The Enigmatic.

It was weird to hear Cool #9 without Joe's usual "We're gonna slip into a thing called Cool #9." ;-)

Both Cool #9 and Summer Song had awesome improv intros.

Lastly... Jon was running around the venue filming and taking photos like a madman. ;-) He made his way in front of me during the end of Ice Nine or the beginning of Crushing Day and was filming from there for a few songs. Jon's photos are already up in the road section. You can see me in some of the crowd shots...I'm wearing a white ITLIS? t-shirt.

After the show I went over to the backstage area to look for him and say hello, but it turns out he was filming interviews of people as they were leaving. So I finally found him over there...I said hello there and then gave my thoughts on the show.

I managed to do it in a lot less words there than I did here, though. ;-)

I've put up a quick and dirty page with pictures of last night's show at the Roxy in Los Angeles. I did about as good a job as possible with a 3 megapixel camera and a crazy crowd. All the pictures are on one page, so it may take some time to load for some people. Thanks Joe!