JOE SATRIANI, STEVE VAI, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN- G3 ROCKIN' IN THE FREE WORLD

Satriani starts thing off with "The Extremist" and the beginning of it is really heavy. I really like this fast paced, hell raiser. The blistering guitar throughout is steller. "Crystal Planet" shows Satriani changing gears a lot from the tasteful guitar sounds to open to the screaming guitar 3 minutes in to the absolute shred-fest later. Great tune ! "Always With Me, Always With You" is a beautiful song that has some nice guitar melodies throughout. "Midnight" doesn't have a lot of melody but it does have some intricate playing from Satch on it. "The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing" is one of his best and he nails it. Vai is up next with "You're Here" a song that immediately gives us a different sound then Satriani did. This is due to the keys from MacAlpine who also plays guitar during this set. Billy Sheehan is on bass. There are also vocals from Vai on this one.The extended guitar solo 2 minutes in is great ! "Reaping" is the best song on the first disc and maybe on either disc. Vai shows such a variety of styles and solos it's unbelieveable. He lets it all hang out on this song. "Whispering A Prayer" is a cool song that Vai really extends far beyond it's normal length. The final guitarist is Malmsteen. He is my least favourite of the three. His famous song "Blitzkrieg" is all about speed. I must say I am so impressed at how fast he can play and at the same time be so smooth. Amazing ! This continues on the next song before he does a cover of a Hendrix song "Red House". It does seem weird that he plays the blues especially when he opens this song with about a hundred notes per second. "Fugue" has a classical flavour,while there is some screaming guitar on "Finale".

The second disc is where the three play a jam together. Malmsteen picks a Hendrix song "Voodoo Child (slight return)" to open. His vocals are rough after he opens it with a blazing solo. They eventually all join in to create a wall of guitar sound. Vai picks another Hendrix song "Little Wing" and he also does the vocals,and the opening guitar. His vocals are really well done I might add. Malmsteen ruins this one for me with his seemingly out of place solos running rough shod over this beautiful song. "Rockin' In The Free World" is a Neil Young song that Satriani sings on. The guitar playing of the guys 8 minutes in is a highlight of the second disc.

There is enough on this double disc to warrant a 3 star rating in my opinion but like the earlier one with Eric Johnson I feel Malmsteen brings the rating down a notch. Hey, maybe the next one with Pertucci is the one that will do it for me.

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