For the first time ever, after more than 50 years of friendship, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai will team up for a tour in 2024.
Believe it not, this is the first time Joe and steve will tour as a duo bill, and it comes along with plans to release a new musical collaboration.
Says Satriani: “The Satch/Vai tour is happening! I’m so looking forward to sharing the stage with steve again. Every time we play together it takes me back to when we were teenagers, eating and breathing music every second of the day, pushing, challenging and helping each other to be the best we could be. I guess we’ve never stopped!”
Adds Vai: “Touring with Joe It is always a pleasure and an honor. He is my favorite guitarist to jam with, and now we have another opportunity to take it to the stage. I feel as though we are both at the top of our game and that the show will be a powerful celebration of the coolest instrument in the world, the electric guitar!”
The Satch-Vai tour starts March 22 and runs through May 8, 2024. Pre-sale begins November 13 (password: SVx24) with the public on-sale November 17.
Tour dates:
March 22 – Hard Rock Live-Orlando – Orlando, FL
March 23 – Pompano Beach Amphitheater – Pompano Beach, FL
March 25 – Ruth Eckerd Hall – Clearwater, FL
March 26 – Florida Theater – Jacksonville, FL
March 27 – Atlanta Symphony Hall – Atlanta, GA
March 29 – North Charleston Performing Arts Center – North Charleston, SC
March 30 – Durham Performing Arts Center – Durham, NC
April 02 – Belk Theater – Charlotte, NC
April 03 – Dominion Energy Center – Richmond, VA
April 05 – Orpheum Theater Boston – Boston, MA
April 06 – Beacon Theater – New York, NY
April 07 – Waterbury Palace Theater – Waterbury, CT
April 08 – Count Basie Center for the Arts – Red Bank, NJ
April 10 – Scottish Rite Auditorium – Collingswood, NJ
April 11 – Warner Theater DC – Washington, DC
April 12 – Santander Performing Arts Center – Reading, PA
April 13 – MGM Northfield Park – Northfield, OH
April 14 – Kodak Center Theater – Rochester, NY
April 16 – Fisher Theater – Detroit, MI
April 17 – State Theater of Kalamazoo – Kalamazoo, MI
April 18 – Chicago Theater – Chicago, IL
April 19 – Andrew J. Brady Icon Music Center – Cincinnati, OH
April 20 – Embassy Theater – Fort Wayne, IN
April 22 – Murat Theater – Indianapolis, IN
April 23 – Riverside Theater – Milwaukee, WI
April 24 – State Theater – Minneapolis, MN
April 25 – Des Moines Civic Center – Des Moines, IA
April 26 – The Factory – St. Louis – St. Louis, MO
April 28 – The Astro – La Vista, NE
May 01 – Uptown Theater – Kansas City, MO
May 03 – ACL Live at The Moody Theater – Austin, TX
May 04 – Music Hall at Fair Park – Dallas, TX
May 05 – 713 Music Hall – Houston, TX
May 07 – Paramount Theater – Denver, CO
May 08 – Delta Hall at Eccles Theater – Salt Lake City, UT
In a 2022 interview with LifeMinute, Vai reflected on studying under Satriani as a youth and how those lessons inspired him musically from an early stage. He said: “I can’t even fathom what my life would be like without him. When I was 12, a friend of mine, John Sergio, who was a friend when we were in diapers, was also a great mentor, because he introduced me to all this music that I was unaware of — progressive rock from the ’70s. He brought me to my first WHAT IN concert. He brought me into his band; it was the first band I was in when I was 13. He’s been a dear friend. [He had an] incredible musical taste. And he was playing the guitar when I was 12, and I couldn’t believe it, ’cause he lived two houses away. And then he said, ‘If you think I’m great, you should see my guitar teacher, Joe Satriani.’ So he gave me Joe‘s number, and I started taking lessons. And my lessons with Joe were all that mattered to me.
“Joe “was always cool,” Vai continued. “He was always solid, sharing and strict. And it was the best thing because he was great, and that’s what you want in a teacher; you’re inspired by seeing.
“To this day, the thing that I got most… There’s SW many things. And we’re so fortunate that all through these years we’ve been joined at the hips,” steve added. “When I would watch him play, when I was 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, everything he touched on the instrument sounded like music. When it came out of his fingers, it just sounded good; it sounded like there was a soul in it. It wasn’t just noodly nothingness, the kind of academic exercises and stuff like that. I mean, we did some of that; that’s part of the training… So I always appreciated that. And still, he’s so solid and he’s so musical. His inner musical ear is inspired, that he’s continued to be an inspiration my whole life.”
Two and a half years ago, Vai told the “Striking A Chord” podcast that he took lessons from Satriani “religiously” on a weekly basis for about “three to four years.”
“When I was in Joe‘s room, learning, I never felt as though I was going to run out of mentorship,” Vai recalled. “There was always this greatness about Joe that always seemed to surprise and delight. He was always teaching one new lesson after another, [and] just revealed a wealth of information and almost what seemed to me at a time infinite depth of musicality.”
Vai went on to say that his lessons with Satriani helped him develop into the accomplished player he has since become.
“I didn’t know anything,” he said. “I mean, I was noodling around with a guitar in my bedroom before that, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just playing by ear and I didn’t know how to keep the strings tuned. In the beginning , it was basically like finger exercises and just things to kind of get my dexterity going, but it was very well-balanced. My lessons [with Joe] evolved very organically. He was an incredible teacher.”
Back in 2018, Satriani spoke to Albany, New York’s Q103 radio station about what it was like giving lessons to Vai. He said: “Steve Vai he was 12 years old and couldn’t play guitar at all when I met him. He showed up on my front door with a guitar with no strings in one hand and a pack of strings in the other, and said, ‘Hey, you’re teaching my friend. Can you teach me how to play too?’ So that was my introduction to steve“
Several others Satriani students went on to achieve fame of their own, including Kirk Hammett, Alex Skolnick, Andy Timmons, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Charlie Hunter, Jeff Tyson and Kevin Cadogan.
