Joe Satriani says that his 2024 tour with ex-Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar was “amazing” - but he admits that even he had difficulty playing some of those classic songs in the style of Eddie Van Halen.
Speaking to Guitar World magazine, Satriani describes how he performed on Hagar’s Best Of All Worlds tour, in which he and the singer were joined by another former Van Halen star, bassist Michael Anthony, and celebrated drummer Jason Bonham.
The setlist for this tour included hit songs from Hagar’s solo career and from his early tenure with the band Montrose, but the bulk of the set was drawn from the singer’s years with Van Halen.
Satriani recalls in Guitar World: “Opening with Good Enough, Poundcake and Runaround is amazing.”
But he adds: “I quickly realised that the order of Eddie’s embellishments is really important to the fans.
“Even though Ed would move things around, this audience knows the studio versions and they will want the scream here, the harmonic cascades there and the finger tapping there.”
Satriani says that the two songs that were most difficult to master were Summer Nights and Poundcake - the latter famously performed by Eddie Van Halen using an electric drill.
“The Poundcake drill is hard to nail,” Satriani admits. “The beginning of Summer Nights is difficult because of the picking and gain structure.”
He says of Summer Nights: “I don’t think I got the intro right until halfway into the tour. It felt so odd to my fingers.”
The full interview with Joe Satriani is in the new issue of Guitar World out now.
