Joe Satriani @ Atlanta Symphony Hall

The lights blinked once, twice, thrice for the audience to enter and Joe Satriani and his band promptly took the stage at Atlanta Symphony Hall.

Sure, his first release was in 1986, but this wasn’t an oldies concert. Satriani began with “Nineteen Eighty” off of Shapeshifting and two from his latest album, The Elephants of Mars. “Nineteen Eighty” set the tone for the show with fast 80’s style riffing, and “Sahara” called back to his earlier world music influences. The title track of Elephants featured a more psychedelic tone with heavy wahs and a requisite trippy video in the background. The set would include twelve songs from his last three albums, blending easily with his older material.

The video screen featured music videos from many different eras of Satriani’s career. There was a variety of video styles from the psychedelic video for Elephants from Mars to old videos of Satriani with his hair like in “Satch Boogie” to an entrancing fan made video of a spaceship flying through different worlds for “Flying in a Blue Dream.” The videos were a welcome complement to the set, particularly for “Summer Song” where the video solos were synched as Satriani played live.

Satriani embellished frequently through the evening, at one point apologizing that he gets carried away and that his outros may be longer than the songs. On one song he mentioned he had an image in his mind while he played of Nicholas Cage riding a motorcycle (a Ghost Rider reference) with his head on fire while being chased, and if he stopped playing then Nick would stop cruising, and that would be very unfortunate.

After a 20 minute intermission, the drummer, Kenny Aronoff, played a high tempo drum solo to heat the audience back up for the next song “Energy.” Following that, the band played “E 104th St NYC 1973” where each band member caught a moment in the spotlight for a slow jazzy jam a la… 1973.

Rai Thistlewayte, the keyboardist from Australia, played a keyboard solo with a synthesizer sounding like a guitar as if to challenge Satriani in his domain. Aronott occasionally chimed in with a hi-hat when there was a groove going.

With Satriani was largely fixed to his pedals at stage right, Bassist Bryan Beller balanced the band visually, rocking back and forth, crouching, grimacing and otherwise exhorting the audience to clap. The band did well in support, but much like his recordings, Satriani’s guitar dominated the aural mix. And, that is, after all, what people came to see and hear.

Throughout his generous 2 hour 20 minute or so set (not including the intermission), Satriani mixed old songs with new, closing the second set with “Satch Boogie.” The entire crowd stood up for this song, a fan-favorite classic from his second album, Surfing With the Alien. Satriani played an encore with the electrifying “Crowd Chant,” a fun audience participation song where you hum along with the guitar riffs. His final encore was the eponymous “Surfing With the Alien.”

This was a great evening featuring too many smooth and speedy guitar solos to count, just as it should be. This likely won’t be the last Atlanta Symphony Hall has to see of Joe and his band, and it was the perfect venue for seeing and hearing a guitar legend, and if you’re wondering about the venue choice based on its name, his guitar was every bit as loud as it needed to be.