FOLLOW-UP/SHORT REVIEW:
Well Keith, you were right... Mountain can still ROCK! I wouldn't necessarily say they "stole the show" from Satriani, but they were definitely equally strong acts. The band was very tight, and Leslie West's guitar playing was amazing... now I see what all the fuss is about him... wow! Glad my son had the chance to see him, being a guitarist and all. And just an aside... Leslie reminds me a bit of comedian Ron White (the Tater Salad dude), in his stature, his face, and his "bourbon & cigarettes" voice. Even my brother said on the way home that he kept reminding him of somebody, especially when he spoke, and I said yeah Ron White, and he yells "yeah that's it!" Corky Laing was quite a character too, the goofy old dude... I've never seen anyone have such a hard time holding onto a drumstick in my life, lol... I mean lots of times he threw them on purpose, but other times they were just flying out of his hands in all directions, lol... he had a ready supply next to him though, and never missed a beat... actually a very good drummer. Both these guys had real stage presence.
While I'm not a huge fan of Satriani's style, I was completely awestruck by his guitar skills. He's way more than a shredder... there is emotion and magic in the music he creates... probably what makes him the best at what he does. The whole time I was asking myself WHY don't I get into this genre more, and then it hit me, it's not just he lack of lyrics like I always thought, it's because it's missing the BLUES! But I thoroughly enjoyed his show, and I'm glad I got to see him at least once, and that my son got to see him. My brother said it was the best Satriani show he's ever been to... he was smiling ear to ear the whole time.
But my absolute favorite part of the whole night was when Joe brought Leslie out during his encore (after already playing 2 encore songs and me thinking the show was over), and (after presenting Leslie with a cake for his birthday) they proceeded to close out the show with two blues numbers... in fact the same two blues songs as in the vids Keith posted... some blues jam and Going Down... it was great! I'm actually kinda glad YouTube was down for maintainence when I was reading Keith's post, or I would've kinda spoiled the surprise, lol... of course the vids are nothing like seeing it live anyway.
Anyway, I can wholeheartedly recommend this tour to anyone... WOW!
--Vik