Joe Satriani‘s forthcoming concert Blu-ray and DVD is going a step beyond the usual: Not only will there be 2-D and 3-D versions, but the 3-D version will get a limited international theatrical screening in late January, a month prior to the home video release.

“I think 500 theaters around the world will get to see this movie in 3-D,” Satch told Attention Deficit Delirium last Thursday. “I just got connected again with the director yesterday. I hadn’t seen him in 10 months, since the filming, so he got us up to date on everything. We’d been working on the 2-D and the music in between the Chickenfoot record, so yesterday was a big day because a lot of things moved forward.”

Beyond getting the release dates squared, Satriani got to watch the two-and-a-half concert video release, recorded in Montréal last December, for the first time. “The 3-D version is really remarkable,” the guitarist declared. “It’s not goofy like 3-D chiller movies. There’s just this extra depth that’s incredible. I had to keep taking the glasses off to marvel at it yesterday, at how cool it looked. It’s just made the experience so much more enjoyable.”





When asked how his concert video will be different from standard 3-D releases, Satriani replied, “The other 3-D stuff is people leaning into the camera. We didn’t do that, and they purposely laid out the stage a little different than how we would normally do it because they wanted to make sure that there wouldn’t be this gimmicky object poking you in the face all the time, disrupting the feel of the concert. They really wanted to place the fan back in that room in Metropolis, which is a really cool venue in Montréal, and make this experience and the technology really work to bring you back to that evening.”

Watching the concert was an intense experience for Satriani because it brought back a flood of memories. “It was the year anniversary of my mother’s death, and I was totally bent out of shape,” he recalled. “I was looking at myself and thought, ‘Okay, it’s not about me.’ The other guys were stellar. The band really rallied around me. They knew I was out of sorts, and I remember going off the stage and shaking my head about the whole thing. [Guitarist] Mike Keneally said, ‘You may not have achieved what you set out to achieve, but what you did achieve was something really special.’

“I thought it was really nice of him to say that, but it didn’t really hit me until I was watching the film last night. Through trying to claw myself out of those feelings came this unusual performance. But I couldn’t help noticing that I physically looked like I was somewhat tortured. It makes the document more unique for me that way because it wasn’t just me being a professional entertainer at all. I wasn’t capable of it that night.”

It turns out that Satriani’s mother was a big fan of his music and always came to see him perform. “She was at my first show at Carle Place High School and came to just about every show I did in the New York area,” he said.