THEY are two of the greatest guitar heroes of their generation, and they’ve been friends for years, occasionally getting together at G3 guitar summits. Now, Stateside gunslingers Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have formed a proper band.

And what a band it is. The axemen are accompanied by session drummer to the stars Kenny Aronoff, guitarist Pete Thorn and bassist-cum-singer Marco Mendoza. Each is a virtuoso musician in his own right, and always in demand.

Put five such talents on stage together and there’s the potential for messy self-indulgence. But the SatchVai band goes out of its way to please at The Halls, Wolverhampton, both Satriani and Vai unashamedly serving up a set of back catalogue classics from their solo careers.

There are a couple of new songs, sure, but they get them out of the way early, opening with a back to basics I Wanna Play My Guitar – Mendoza singing in place of Glenn Hughes, who appears on the single. Next is the musically more ambitious The Sea Of Emotion, Pt. 1 which at times has a riff reminiscent of Zeppelin’s Kashmir.

Vai, tall and lean, follows with an urgent Zeus In Chains and Little Pretty, the latter a song that fails to live up to its title and which proves fairly forgettable. Then Satriani returns and the two trade licks in a mash-up of Joe’s Ice 9 and Steve’s The Crying Machine.

It’s only now that the gig begins to take wing. Satriani’s atmospheric Flying In Blue Dream and early breakthrough Surfing With The Alien ignite the crowd, followed by a duet on a sublime Sahara, a Satriani song that fair shimmers with heat.

Vai’s bluesy Tender Surrender is followed by an absurdly ambitious Teeth Of The Hydra, in which he plays a triple-neck guitar. It’s technically brilliant but more to be admired than enjoyed. Thank goodness then for Satriani’s barnstorming Satch Boogie.

It’s the tipping point. If I Could Fly – the song Satriani famously claimed Coldplay copied for their Viva La Vida hit – features some gorgeous guitar interplay between the bandleaders, and Vai’s spiritual For The Love Of God is easily his strongest of the night.

They end with Satriani’s Always With Me, Always With You, a beautiful instrumental at any time, but here built to a rocky climax with an intensity not noted in the original, during which all three guitarists play off each other. It has never sounded better.

The band encores with Crowd Chant, which does what it says on the tin, and a joyous medley of Metallica’s Enter Sandman and Steppenwolf classic Born To Be Wild, during which Satriani and Vai tease with other back catalogue licks, and a snippet of Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love.

Five musicians noted for near-impossible technique then, but a set that has been anything but clinical, offering evocative melody, moments of high emotion and enough rock and roll to put a silly smile on the face of the audience. More please.

Wolverhampton gig images courtesy of Chud Photography