The Day God Landed

I have been an on-and-off fan of Joe Satriani, and once even traded my railway pass money to buy The Extremist CD, possibly his best album. It was sometime in 1998, when a car was a distant dream.

So, it was with some amount of nostalgia, but with loads of curiosity that I went to attend his concert in Mumbai on Friday, May 13. I have innumerable Satriani MP3s, and I have heard them again and again in office, sometimes to delight of fellow guitar fan and Satriani devotee Raaabo, but more often than not with looks of annoyance from the rest. The fact that I am the boss around here, helps. So no one ever registered their protest, but indeed there is gossip at the lunch table about my esoteric choice of music.

Be that as it may, I bought the Rs 500 tickets, and like most real fans, had to be relegated to the back of beyond--about 300 metres away from the stage. The cool dudes from Bandra, Nepean Sea Road, and Pedder Road, went right at the front, and kept shouting "We want 'War'", much after Satriani played it. The backbenchers were aghast at the ignorance, and I am sure Satriani himself felt a churn in the stomach that "fans" who paid Rs 2000 cannot even recognise his biggest ever hit. He should have known--they did not recognise him even when he came on stage, and applauded only much later!

Satriani's performance was sublime. His fingers worked the magic, and the guitar set (he changed his guitar almost every two songs) responded brilliantly. Satriani's strength comes from the fact he is not a metalhead; and he never feels the need to pander to that audience. Therefore, when there was genuine delight when he played the supremely brilliant 'Moroccan Sunset', you could see a lot of people leaving. They just could not understand him. Many had come to headbang, and they were not given that pleasure. He even jammed at the end of 'Moroccan Sunset', and created new music out of nowhere. He later thanked the crowd for letting him jam. It was the moment of the concert.

A similar emotion came through when he played Summer Song, his other big hit. A colleague who attended the concert with me said, "If I get goosebumps when he plays, then it will be paisa vasool." I must admit that I goosebumped thrice--during 'Psycho Monkey', 'Friends' (the superb grand finale), and 'Moroccan Sunset'. Surprisingly 'War' never evoked such feelings (although it did rouse the almost sleepy frontbenchers), maybe because it was almost three hours into the concert, and the heat was getting to everybody, except the performers.

The sound was okay, but the lights were almost amateurish -- a low-budget play at the Prithvi has better lighting. Yet, the whole idea of going to a Satriani concert is not the frills, it is for the master himself. Going for a Satriani concert is like watching The Matrix. Yes, there are great special effects and superb fight sequences, but what you are fascinated by is the concept and the story. In other words, the reason you used to go to movies for once upon a time.

Satriani is like that. You go to his concert just for him. Yes, the crowds were dismal. Yes, the lights were bad. Yes, the timing was pathetic. Yes, the maidan at Bandra's MMRDA will not improve in a million years. Yes, the cops could not stop people from smoking grass and pot. Yes, the constables were also looking at women (some with tattoos on their well-exposed midriffs) as if they were their next rape targets. Yes, the heat was just too much. Yes, the fans were kept the farthest from the stage.

But really, I went to hear Satriani's magic. And I got just that.