by Arta Gailuma
— Photojournalist —
April 30, 2018 at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, U.K. —
Joe Satriani’s G3 concert tour since its debut in 1996 has featured many of world’s best guitarists: Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Morse, Michael Schenker amongst others. For G3 2018 edition’s U.S. leg Satriani was joined by Dream Theater’s John Petrucci and Def Leppard’s Phil Collen. For the European part of the tour, with its last show in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, Joe invited again Petrucci and Uli Jon Roth.
With the wizard-like look- long white hair floating in the air tied over with hippy type headscarf, feathers dangling from his guitar head, Uli Jon Roth looked like coming from a different time in history. The five-piece band with Niklas Turmann on lead vocals were featured a magnificent version of ‘Fly To The Rainbow,’ the Scorpions classics ‘The Sails Of Charon’ and ‘ We’ll Burn The Sky’ which is dedicated to Uli’s brother Zeno who passed away in February this year.
The second part of the set started with an atmospheric night sky display on the large screen preparing us for something rather heavy to come. Dressed appropriately in black, John Petrucci assisted by Dave LaRue on bass and his Dream Theater fellow Mike Mangini on drums did bring an instrumental full metal set to the party. There were plenty of heads in the room nodding passionately in the rhythm- and would be impossible not to. In the seated set up it was hard not to just stand up and start headbanging in full force.
Third up this evening was Joe Satriani, who dived straight into pieces from his new sixteenth studio album What Happens Next released in January 2018 receiving huge ovations between the songs. Straight after the last piece of his set Satriani was calling out John and Uli for a “threesome” delivering classic pieces ‘Immigrant Song’ (Led Zeppelin), ‘Highway Star’ (Deep Purple) with vocals of Niklas Turmann and a Jimi Hendrix track- Bob Dylan cover ‘All Along The Watchtower’ with vocals by Roth himself.
What a beautiful night- a showcase of technical skills – full of emotional guitar solos, lots of shredding, plenty of Heavy Metal notes. For someone like me, a sucker for the progressive and instrumental genres, it was music to immerse myself and forget for few hours the existence of anything else in the world.
G3: Joe Satriani, Uli Jon Roth & Jon Petrucci Concert Photo Gallery
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Setlists:
Uli Jon Roth: Sky Overture, Sun In My Hand, We’ll Burn The Sky, Air de Aranjuez, Fly To The Rainbow, The Sails Of Charon
John Petrucci: Wrath Of The Amazons, Jaws Of Life, The Happy Song, Damage Control, Glassy Eyed Zombies, Glasgow Kiss
Joe Satriani: Energy, Catbot, Satch Boogie, Cherry Blossoms, Thunder High On The Mountain, Super Funky Badass, Circles, Always With Me Always With You, Summer Song
G3 Jam: Highway Star, All Along The Watchtower, Immigrant Song
www.satriani.com
www.facebook.com/joesatriani/
www.johnpetrucci.com
www.facebook.com/johnpetrucciFB/
www.ulijonroth.com
www.facebook.com/ulijonrothofficial/
