Guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani has revealed the intensive preparation required to step into the shoes of the late Eddie Van Halen for the 2024 “The Best Of All Worlds” tour. The high-profile summer trek saw the guitarist join forces with vocalist Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony to perform a setlist heavily dominated by classic Van Halen material.
In a new interview with “Andy Guitar“, Satriani admitted that while learning the structural arrangements by ear from the original studio master tracks was straightforward, capturing the fine distinctions of the pioneer’s fretwork required looking outside his own habits. To conquer the challenge, the guitarist turned to the global online guitar community, spending hours analyzing how other players on YouTube attempted to crack the code of the legendary guitarist’s unique style.
Reflecting on how he tackled the daunting assignment and evaluated his own technical strengths against the material, Joe Satriani explained (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):
“Well, I definitely started with original recordings and just used my ear to get the chords and the arrangement. And that’s the easy part. The hard part is the quirky fingering string choices. Every guitar player, we have our own pluses and minuses, and it might be speed, timing, touch, tone, intonation — all kinds of things that certain people have a lot of, and then there are areas where we’re kind of deficient, let’s say, than the next player. And so, yeah, you have to kind of come up against that and see, like, ‘Well, how do I measure up in that particular area, and how do I work around it?’ But I think one thing that really helped me was this amazing community, these guitar players of all ages dedicated so many hours to figuring out exactly how Ed played a lot of these songs. And so I would, after I learned the song, I’d go and I’d spend an hour or two on YouTube just watching how other people address this immense problem of trying to emulate Ed‘s playing. And you can’t capture the magic, but you can get pretty close to the fingering, and some players are better than others. And it was just great for me to sit across from the screen and just go, ‘Okay, he’s doing that on the first three strings. This guy’s doing it on the third string. She’s doing it somewhere else,’ and how some people pull it off.'”
The guitarist further noted that capturing the improvisational energy and raw spirit of the music frequently took precedence over rigid note-for-note replication, citing peers who successfully performed the catalog with alternative technical approaches.
“There are players out there like — I was thinking of [Bon Jovi and Triumph guitarist] Phil X, who will play great Van Halen songs without any vibrato bar. And it reminds you that the spirit is sometimes more important than just imitating the part that might be. There’s a lot of ways. And then when you go deep into any live clips or if you have memories of seeing Van Halen, like I do, you remember, like, ‘Oh, yeah, [Ed] played it differently every single time.’ He shocked you at how he would just forget about some part or purposely not play it the way it is on the record and just replace it with something you never expected. And you loved it anyway. You have to keep that in mind,” he added.
Prior to launching “The Best Of All Worlds,” Joe Satriani had previously collaborated with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony in the hard rock supergroup Chickenfoot, tracking two studio records between 2009 and 2011 without ever incorporating any Van Halen material into their live sets.
Fast forward to the present, and the guitarist is currently channeling his creative energy into a massive collaborative project with his lifelong friend and former student, Steve Vai. The virtuoso duo is currently traversing North America on their highly anticipated “Surfing With The Hydra” tour under the unified band banner SatchVai.
Supported by a powerhouse backing band featuring drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist Marco Mendoza, and guitarist Pete Thorn, along with progressive metal openers Animals As Leaders, the trek represents a historical turning point for the two guitar masters. For the first time in their nearly 50-year relationship, the pair are touring as a fully integrated, cohesive group rather than co-headlining solo artists.
The extensive 40-date North American tour is rapidly approaching its final week. Moving through the final leg of the campaign, the band is performing at the Palace Theatre in Albany, New York tonight, May 21, before heading into Connecticut for a performance at the Palace Theater in Waterbury on May 22.
Remaining “Surfing With The Hydra” Tour Dates:
- May 21 – Albany, NY @ Palace Theatre
- May 22 – Waterbury, CT @ Palace Theater
- May 23 – Virginia Beach, VA @ The Dome
- May 27 – Reading, PA @ Santander Performing Arts Center
- May 28 – New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
- May 29 – Atlantic City, NJ @ Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa
- May 30 – Vienna, VA @ Wolf Trap
