Ollyno1, mate, do you know which area of the terrace rows CC and BB are in? I hope it's not right over to one side, up against a wall or an emergency exit or something. Tell me nearer the time what seat number you have and I'll see if I can see you!

My sister is going to the one in London too, and called me today and asked if I want to go! cool! 2 G3 concerts in 3 days! with Toto on the night in between!

trutina/miranda, best regards to both of you. Miranda, i'm not at all religious either, but I do send my best wishes to bil. I'm really sorry to hear he had such a bad hit against the new treatment, i've seen similar things happen before and i know it's frustrating to know that the drugs can actually make things worse.

I haven't been here that long and have not had the pleasure of talking with bil much, but it is abundantly clear that he is part of the t2j 'inner circle' - he is one of those who everyone looks up to, who everyone likes to see hear and who everyone likes to hear from, and I hope we don't have to wait too long before bil posts to us all again.

If he is still in a coma then I hope he can hear you, so he can hear you give him everyone's best regards from the messageboard! I'm sure we are all agreed!

ollyno1, I just ordered 2 more tickets! ahh! Someone else do the sums on what 13 tickets at £29 costs me! hehe

Dude, thanks for telling me about where those seats are! I'm happier now! oh and thanks for the link to the seating plan. the numbers are kinda hard to read but I get the idea!

I'm sure joe will want to make a trip to india when it makes sense for him to do so.

JS JS, hell yeah! I'm going to see G3 right here in rainy, almost freezing, windy, grumpy england and it's gonna rule! twice! hehe, i'm a lucky boy, my sister got me a ticket for the london show after I got tickets for us to go to bournemouth!

Yeah, every G3 tour that cames around (starting from the most recent tour onwards) I'll be voting for The Forgotten (Part 2) For G3! it's my favourite tune of Joe's.....it just has so much, and I think it would create such an amazing atmosphere played live! I can't believe he hasn't done it already!

JS JS, hehe, yeah I can play the beginning of The Forgotten (Part 2) as well, but like you, just leave the maestro to it when it comes to the solo. I know I can't play it properly and I really need to learn some stuff, and fast. But hey, all it takes is practice! if you can find out the process behind different techniques, you can practice it!

enough venting from me too!

Sexual Harrassment In The Workplace for G3!

OCPS470, just listened to 'Clearwater', and am now listening again. it's a nice tune, tho not my kinda vocal style. anyway, which tone are you curious about? the acoustic tone or the background tone?

The background tone is great, pretty subtle, but it has a slightly retro vibe.....sounds like the sort of thing EJ would use in the background! As for the main rhythmn tone, I think it needs to be crisper, more like Dr Vai's acoustic tone - quite latin in a way, where the bass strings give a real 'boiyoing' sound. But that's just my opinion! hehe, either way, the whole thing has great tone. This Fender amp business is really quite interesting.....there's no denying they sound nice!

funkymunky was yours, right? just listened to that again as well.....what a cool tune!

Austin, Ben and Jerry's is the muts' nuts! I'f you're in the market for Ice Cream, B&J's is surely what you gotta go for! hehe. I love Phish Food!

Ben & Jerry's for G3!

trutina, WELCOME BACK BIL!!!! we all missed you loads. I'm so pleased to hear you're awake. I know I don't know you much and don't talk to you much here on t2j (no reason....just coinsidence!) but I, like everyone else, have been really optimistic about reading a message from you soon!

Dude, you are one f*ing funny guy, I'll certainly make a point of looking out for you in future! I love the way you handled that interviewer, classic! I won't write too much now cuz I would guess you're feeling pretty drowsy! Is you're throat starting to rehydrate yet? I hope you're feeling better with every passing hour, and keep resting! Thanks loads for talking to us all and letting us know you're ok! Take it easy!

Miranda, thanks for keeping us updated on Bil's progress. He's obviously a very lucky guy, not only to be awake with the rest of us again, but to have you looking after him. When you're not both sleeping make sure you play some Satch nice and loud - you never know, the others in the ward may hear it in their 'sleep' and feel like they are Flying In A Blue Dream!

Oh and hey, when things are more 'back to normal', so to speak, and you have some free time, feel free to join the community here or keep posting under Bil's user-name...it's great to hear from you!

SupaaDave, I think you spelled pretentious right! hehe, well I understood it anyway. yeah I have to agree. I think people who don't understand him or just hear a few of his songs think he must be an arrogant bastard, but these are the people who just happen to miss the subtlety in his work, his graciousness (spelling?! haha) and things like his 'journal' entries on his website.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll love the DVD. I haven't got it yet but I was at the second show that was filmed for it, and it was mind-blowing.

I always feel kinda bad when I say things like that about Steve cuz this is Joe's message board! hehe, Joe you're amazing too! Your SBM gig in London was the second gig I ever went to....actually no, the 3rd, cuz I went to see Billy Joel at Wembley when I was about 5!

Joe knows how to put on an amazing show, and the atmosphere is something that you unfortunately can't pick out on a DVD.

it would be cool if I bump into you there!

actually, that's a good question - anybody got any ideas of what would make a cool banner for a G3 gig? hehe. I promise we won't hold it up all night, obscuring the view for the next 10 rows behind us!

How about "Giant fruit suits for G3!"?

Enjoy!

Ovation1, hell yeah, a skyliner would be cool! I'd have to have it saying either "Fruit Suits For G3!" or The Forgotten (Part 2) For G3! hehe

Hows the Jem, sensai? is it okay?

Damn right about Eric Johnson...he has the sound of the gods. I think he is WAAAYYYY better than a lot of people!

Ethn, you met Eric Sardinas? cool! I bet that was interesting!

the stylised font on the new tabs is nice too! I still miss the old background to the message 'table', but all-in-all the changes are cool.

I would advise waiting until the JSX becomes available. cuz you ought to try out different amps and see what sound you like best. The price bracket covers the JSX, the XXX, the Legacy, the Laney VH100, probably a Hughes & Kettner if you add another hundred-or-two, Marshall, although I wouldn't advise that, and a Fender.

PhrygianDominant, (can I just keep calling you PhryDom?! hehe), no I haven't tried any Behringer stuff! I don't get to try amps that often, and usually when I'm trying a guitar in a shop the sales-person will plug me into a Boogie combo cuz it is going to be the best thing to make the guitar sound great!

I just had to try those H&K's tho - I don't have a practice amp, just the Legacy, so if I do get something small to carry around it'll definitely be the H&K. I can't remember what it was called though - something with 'Blue' in it!

Lukewaller, no problem. Me, I been playing about 3.5 years (tho my username info says 4!). I'm not very good, to be honest. Sometimes I feel like i'm making progress, but then I have crappy days! anyway. must-have DVD's......umm, my collection isn't vast but I have both G3 DVD's, Joe's Live In SanFran show, Vai's Alien Love Secrets, Dream Theater's Live From New York (I think it's called Metropolis 2000 or something!), Toto 25th Anniversary, Joe's Satch Tapes, and I can also recommend a couple of tutorial videos - Eric Johnson's "Hot Licks" videos, and the Paul Gilbert ones aren't bad either.

I have the Vai-Astoria DVD on order, as well as the "Guitar Wars" DVD - really hard to get hold of, but featuring Paul Gilbert and Nuno Bettencourt; something tells me it's going to be amazing!

I definitely think Vai has the best stage presence I've seen, but then Joe gives off a totally different vibe - he's so chilled you almost forget you're in a massive auditorium with 2 or 3 thousand other people. Then he starts playing "Flying In A Blue Dream" and the crowd erupts and then you remember the 2 or 3 thousand others!

The Forgotten (Part 2) For G3!

JS JS, was your question (about the cool experience) in regards to what I said about the crowd erupting when Joe starts on FIABD?

if so, it's a general thing, which is noticeable on both the LISF and G3 96 DVD's, but is also something amazing I remember from the show I saw in summer '02. It was on the Strange Beautiful Tour, in London, and FIABD was the first number Joe played.......it is an amazing atmosphere to set up a show with!

Jazzy Boy, the JS2000 has a fixed bridge, with locking nut and locking bridge saddles with fine tuners. it's like a Floyd Rose but it doesn't move.......it's meant to be super stable, but it's a gimmick.

As I said before, get the USA Strat - it has great tone, a stable bridge, a nice neck, it won't break your back when you spend more than 3 hours playing in a standing position, and you can do loads to customise it.

The clean channel is varied from generic clean sound to something more crisp and Ovation-esque. It can even handle the Strat sound well, although not the same as you'd get from a Fender. The 'Lead' channel is cool cuz it does a lot of tones, very well - if you were to plug a 335 into the dirty channel, with the neck pickup selected with the tone wound off, then put the 'drive' (gain) on the amp to low (2) but the volume up, you would get a decent jazz sound, and if you boost it with a tubescreamer, a DS-1 or similar, you get a slightly more driven, BB King/EJ sort of sound.

If you wind the gain up, and the 'presence' control, using a guitar with shred/rock pickups (an Ibanez RG/JS/PGM/EDR/Jem/UV or a Washburn Nuno model, for example) you get a massive rhythm tone, much like Nuno Bettencourt or Paul Gilberts, without it sounding industrial.

If you use the smoother gain sound, but with a hot neck pickup (a Jem for example) it sounds like Vai's tone! And if you use the boosted smooth tone with a Strat it's more harpy, so you get some very interesting harmonics/feedback/general characteristics out of it!

Related to other amps, it's more varied than a boogie, more ballsy than a fender, simply more interesting than a marshall, and more daring than a cornford. I haven't tried any other valve amps in a similar range, so I can't comment, but I would imagine it is capable of the smooth tones that an H&K and a Laney aren't.

If I had a decent method of recording I'd make a quick demo, but I don't, so I won't, cause I can't! hehe. Tone-wise, having heard some of your demo tracks, I think you'd quite like it, but you seem to be getting a sweet tone out of your Fender and POD! Hope that wasn't too long-winded! hehe

I guess that's what makes someone a decent performer, but it's nice that someone like that can seem so 'human' or 'normal' when you take them 'out of context', so to speak.

ok, too many apostrophies in that post. I'll try using loads of semi-colons tomorrow!

Kirsch, being a new member here I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about your post. A lot of the regulars here will know that I do have respect for Petrucci! Don't worry about that, I show the man the utmost respect every time I put on his music.

Petrucci is a guitar-demon. His technical ability is among the best, I just don't like his lack of live rawness. That's what I liked about Joe's tone on LISF - as the man Joe himself said, he likes the simplicity of having a guitar into a few pedals into an amp, with no huge racks of processing.

With Petrucci's sound you can't really hear too clearly what the amp and guitar actually sound like, and whn you do, it's disappointing. That Ernie Ball/Music man JPM is a lovely guitar, but it's pickups are not that interesting. not compared to Joe's or Dr Vai's.

My favourite thing about Petrucci's playing is the riffs - he comes up with amazing rhythm structures, which I personally enjoy more than his solos.

The Glass Prison kicks ass, one of my favourites.

Anyway, I kinda know what you mean about being put off by the Floyd Rose, but don't let the RG give you a misrepresentation of Ibanez guitars. The Floyd's on the really decent guitars like the Jem's and JS's are amazingly well-ballanced and keep in tune very well. I have a Jem and an RG, and I don't want the RG any more - it's ok but the Lo-TRS II royally p*ss*s me off, whereas the Lo-pro on my Jem is amazing. I give it so much abuse, it really should have given up by now, but it seems fine!

However, a decent Strat is still a good idea....i just feel that if you get a Les Paul you will find yourself missing the tremolo arm!

marimariSRV, hey did you know that Kenny Wayne Shepherd is working on his 4th album, hopefully to be released in July/August?! I can't wait!

Dude, what you said about Britney and the JSY2K is spot-on! hahaha, love it. Take it easy, eat more brownies!

I know the 7-String RG you're talking about, I'm afraid I've heard lots of bad things about those. I played one as well, and it wasn't too exciting, but if you can afford a pair of DiMarzio Blaze pickups to drop in it you may find things rather different!

mick87, haha, 'Mr T playing guitar' - I guess his signature model would have to be littered with gold hardware! Bling bling! hehe.

Yeah I'd be interested to see what'd happen if Gilbert, Petrucci and Timmons got together! Gilbert would undoubtedly have them laughing with his fun humour, and would probably give the most impressive shred show. Petrucci would rule the riff side, but I think Andy would, in his own sophisticated way, keep tabs on the others through sheer versatility. Flamenco? okay. oh you want me to sound like Stevie-Ray now? allrighty then. Oop, neo-classical sounds good for a laugh...oh hold on, it's blues time

Mix Nuno in there and you'd have a right little party, he'd surely have the rhytmn thing sewn up! Hmm, speaking of Nuno and Paul together, I can't wait for my Guitar Wars DVD!

Ceremony and The Crush Of Love for G3 for Slovenia! Sorry Mischievous, I can't remember how to spell your town! hehe

The Vai Live At The Astoria DVD:

I think this has to be the best DVD in my collection. It brought back a lot of memories, as well as showing me things that I never noticed before. If I were only allowed a few words to describe it, one of them would be 'artistic'.

I think Satriani's Live In San Francisco DVD is easier to dip into, so if I want to come in and watch some music for half an hour I'd probably choose that or the G3 '96 DVD.

But Steve's DVD is thoroughly enjoyable, and very revealing. The sound is pretty awesome, although it changes in places when you use the digital surround setup. The video quality is awesome too, and the little effects he's put on some of the frames are ok.....I though the ones on the Dream Theater DVD were a bit lame.

I was pleasantly surprised, cuz I remember Steve reporting that they didn't get much footage of his hands and his fretboard, but there seems to be a lot of it on there. It's a good ballance actually. Also, he certainly gives off a vibe that this was the most enjoyable show he'd ever played, although it's impossible to tell.

The band was awesome - I don't remember "Dave's Party Piece" at all but it was good, and DW doesn't look out of place in the band. Billy is Billy - he just rocks, and just like on the G3 '03 show, he's great fun to watch. Same goes for Tony, only his (and DW's) sound was better on this than on the G3 DVD. Virgil Donati was incredible on the night, and none of that is lost through the camera lens. His drum solo is so cool!

The special features disc is fun and interesting, and worthwhile! So many 'Special Features' are completely pointless, so this was nice to see.

And finally, the music itself: I thought the song selection was great - there were some I didn't recognise at the time, like "Shyboy" and "Chameleon" but I'm very familiar with them now. Steve's tone is great - I couldn't hear him too well when I was there cuz I was all the way over to the right (Dave Weiner's left), and he seems to have been pretty much at his peak as far as technical playing goes.

I've been away for 4 days so I have a fair amount to wade through. this could take a while...

And I personally think ESP's are lame but that's just in my experience. Different guitars suit different people.

webboogie, welcome to t2j! and yeah, that a very interesting point.....if you open the Crystal Planet CD liner and look at the photos, you can see a Fender Telecaster hanging in Joe's rack alongside a couple of JS's.....I agree with Mikey Vai (Ovation1) that this is just a rule that the dealer has made up for himself!

If I put a push-pull pot in the tone control, could I use it in the 1st and 5th positions to split the humbucker so I just use the outer-most half, ie, 1st position with coil split uses the neck-side half of the neck humbucker, and the 5th position with the coil split uses the bridge-side half of the bridge humbucker?

speaking of painting, does anybody in the UK know of any decent spray shops? I'd like something added to my Jem, right where vai rights the names on his guitars, only I don't want it done in magic marker!

anibur, "Souvenir" is Eric Johnson's most recent release - it's an archive of various things he's wanted to release over the years, so it's very varied, and very nice to listen to. It also, yet again, has beautiful artwork. He is, indeed, working on a new album - "Bloom" - which, as with most artists, is taking a little longer than he expected. He's just about to finish his acoustic tour, so after that I should think we'll only have to wait a few more months!

about the Jem - you wish it had the AANJ? wassat? excuse my ignorance! Yeah i'm kinda tempted to see if that extra coil-splitting can be done - it'd give me 7 tones! Kind of appropriate, don't you think?