At Embassy Theatre on Saturday, April 20, we’ll see two lifelong friends on the tour of a lifetime as virtuoso rock guitarists Joe Satriani and Steve Vai bring The Satch/Vai Tour to town. 

Helming their own bands, collaborating with more artists than we can possibly mention, and touring the world, they have been playing for more than 50 years.

Lifelong journey

Vai never tires of telling how Satriani taught him to play. 

Around 1972 in Long Island, when Vai was 12, he got his first guitar, and heard that his schoolmate, 16-year-old Satriani, offered lessons. Vai showed up unannounced at his door, and Satriani taught him weekly for years, while both of them got a thorough music theory education from their high school teacher Bill Wescott.

“We deeply love each other and respect each other,” Vai told me during a phone call ahead of a show in Virginia.

“That connection was unique that I had with him, more than any other musician I ever played with. So now, when Joe and I are on the stage 50 years later, when we’re doing our improvising together, we go to places that I didn’t even know I could go. We both have similar sort of sensibilities. We have different melodic ears and sort of different techniques — although our techniques overlap a lot because he taught me how to play, you know! And we have a similar kind of interest in the bizarre.

“When the two of us get together and we’re exchanging that deep, intimate musical exchange, the quirkiness comes through and it’s just magnificent. I can’t recall another experience I’ve had with another musician ever — where I was able to feel that much fun and freedom of expression and connection. After 50 years, here it is.”

On this tour, Vai will open the show with his band: Philip Bynoe on bass, Jeremy Colson on drums, and Dante Frisiello on guitar and keyboards. Satriani will then take over with his band: Bryan Beller on bass, Kenny Aronoff on drums, and Rai Thistlethwayte on keyboards. Then, Vai will join Satriani’s band to play their brand-new duet single “The Sea of Emotion, Part 1,” followed by more jamming.

Making name for themselves

In 1987, I moved into a dorm at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, where I studied singing. 

Hot-shot young guitarists would drag me to their rooms to listen to tracks from Vai’s 1984 debut solo album Flex-Able, and Satriani’s 1987 breakthrough, Surfing with the Alien. Everybody’s jaws dropped in wonder; what each artist had in common was they played instrumental music that could be bewilderingly complex, but never veered too far from memorable hooks and guitar melodies so lyrical that you could sing them.

Vai had played with Frank Zappa and would go on to Whitesnake and David Lee Roth; Satriani toured with Mick Jagger and sat in with a host of jazz fusion artists. And so on for years. Can’t drop many more names; we don’t have the space. 

Throughout, these two had their solo careers, recording albums of almost entirely instrumental rock, which got them a bit of radio airplay but never any hit singles. Still, each racked up millions in album sales, garnering legions of fans. Each practiced shrewd business acumen, too.

In 1996, Satriani unveiled his G3 show — three guitar heroes with their bands, touring the world, year after year. The first lineup was Satriani, Vai, and the great Eric Johnson, and those tours went on for decades with a revolving cast of new guitarists.

Around that time Vai started his own record label, Favored Nations, not only for his own albums but also to promote instrumental guitar music from a host of like-minded artists. 

“It was a great time in the music business,” he said. 

The label was successful during the eras of physical albums and iTunes and digital downloads, but since the streaming era took over, Vai has concentrated on his own music.

But he does pop up in the strangest collaborations. 

Young progressive rock heroes Polyphia tapped Vai for a featured spot. He’s ecstatic about recording with traditional Irish Gaelic singer Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin. Vai made an early connection with phenomenal British singer and composer Jacob Collier and has contributed guitar on several tracks over the years. 

“We actually became very good friends. And I was just talking to him yesterday,” Vai said of Collier. “He’s totally inspired. He is of a new breed of connected musicianship. He’s going to continue to do extraordinary things.

“I’m a completely independent artist that way. There’s no way I’d be able to make records with Satriani and tour with Beat and do all this kind of stuff if I was signed to a (major) label.”

Anticipated prog tour

Tour with Beat? What’s that? 

Not to take away from the excitement of the Fort Wayne show, but Vai was eager to tell me about his next project: a major U.S. tour to start in September, and it will likely to go worldwide. 

Beat is guitarist and singer Adrian Belew and bass player Tony Levin, with Danny Carey of Tool, playing the music Belew and Levin recorded in the early ’80s with King Crimson. Guitarist Robert Fripp is retired, and they all decided Vai was the only man for the job. Vai has been friends with Fripp since they toured with Satriani in G3 in 1997 (and I saw them live!). 

I wish I had more space to tell you how excited Vai is to debut in a classic progressive rock band, to play music he deeply admired back in the day — and to learn Fripp’s heretofore inimitable style. 

“It’s beautiful, beautiful, crazy, crazy stuff,” he said.

On his last solo tour, Vai said he played 194 concerts in 51 countries. 

“Brother, my cup runneth over,” he said warmly. “It’s astonishing to me. It makes me feel like I live a charmed life. I love traveling. I love going to different places. It’s fantastic. And especially right now with Joe, we’re touching on something that is really a satisfying and fulfilling life experience. I can’t be happier.”