Dom Robinson reviews
Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson & Steve Vai
- Cat.no: 501579
- Cert: E
- Running time: 69 minutes
- Recorded: November 2nd, 1996
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 13
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM Stereo
- Languages: English
- Lyrics: None
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Biographies
G3 Live in Concert takes three of the most influential rock guitarists from the past decade (it says here) and places them on stage together for the first time.
Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai combined for a “G3” tour of the USA in October 1996. This DVD shows the night they spent at the Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis.
Each of the three takes it in turns to wow the audience, before they join forces for the final act.
Presented in fullscreen, the picture portrays a colourful set but the usual NTSC-PAL conversion leaves things a little out-of-focus.
Released in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound with PCM Stereo as an alternative option, the sound is very good, but the DD5.1 doesn’t add a great deal the performance compared to the downmixing that a DVD player can make from a DD5.1 track, as opposed to the standard PCM stereo version.
Extras :
Chapters :
There are 13 chapters, one for each song as per normal. The track listing is as follows (with the opening titles played as part of the first chapter) :
- Joe Satriani
- 1. Cool #9
2. Flying in a Blue Dream
3. Summer Song
Eric Johnson
- 4. Intro Song
5. Manhattan
6. SRV
Steve Vai
- 7. Answers
8. For the Love of God
9. The Attitude Song
The Jam Songs (featuring all 3 G’s)
- 10. Going Down
11. My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama
12. Red House
13. End credits
Languages/Lyrics :
No languages, just instrumental tunes for the most part, but no lyrics in the last quarter when they prove they can sing too.
And there’s more… : Just some brief Biographies about each of the three, but it scrolls so s-l-o-w-l-y up the screen and you can’t speed it up.
Menu :
An animated clip of the three “G”‘s spanking their respective planks.
If these three are the best of the best of the best, as we’re meant to believe, then it doesn’t really show here. Most of the tunes are so generic as to be dull it’s untrue and Red House starts off as a promising blues track, but never goes anywhere.
The only two tracks which really did float my boat were Flying in a Blue Dream and For the Love of God, although the latter just sounds like a Gary Moore rip-off.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.