POP MUSIC REVIEW : Rock Guitarist Satriani Rolls With Style <i> and </i> Technique

All too often, contemporary hard rock guitar slinging is an exercise in excess. Play the speedy flurries that pass for so-called “technique” and strike the right Promethean poses, and fans who weren’t even alive back in the days B.C. (Before Cream) will want to stake you to a spot in Valhalla.

It also helps to have a Teutonic-sounding name, like Yngwie. Lacking that, you can still get in by paying homage to the operatics of Richard Wagner. Never mind the blues of Muddy Waters.

Yes, hard rock guitar heroism in the ‘80s has become as devalued as the dollar. But judging from Joe Satriani’s show Sunday night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, the six-string economy could be in for a boost.

Players of the flurry-and-pose school have about as much chance of crafting a lasting statement as a bunch of typing monkeys have of pecking out a Shakespearean sonnet. Satriani, on the other hand, showed that he knows his Shakespeare, or at least its equivalent in the electric poetry of such revered players as Jimi Hendrix and John McLaughlin.

While displaying some of the technical innovations of the ‘80s, Satriani, who is at the Roxy tonight, also honored traditional values such as structure, melody and variation of style and dynamics. The result was a show that certainly could satisfy the guitar mavens looking for “technique,” but that also spoke to plain old music fans looking for something that rocked well and carried some emotional weight.

Satriani, 31, has been on a roll lately. Mick Jagger picked him as a sideman for his shows in Japan, and Satriani’s own “Surfing With the Alien” album has ridden a crest into the Top 30--a rarity for an all-instrumental rock record.

The album has its strengths, but Satriani’s live performance far surpassed it. Rock is most exciting as a team sport, and Satriani, who played everything but the drums on his album, had a couple of all-stars at his side in bassist Stuart Hamm and drummer Jonathan Mover. Hamm’s ability to add melodies and build harmonies on the bass lent an exceptional richness to the basic power trio attack, and gave Satriani the freedom to be as daring as he pleased on guitar.

Hamm’s solo set piece on bass was funny and flashy as he showcased a two-handed technique in which he approached the instrument as if it were a piano: the left hand keeping rhythm, while the right simultaneously played melody.

Satriani wasn’t immune to the pervasive heavy metal addiction to speedy runs played high up the guitar neck (please, Eddie Van Halen, tell everyone to just say no), but it was easier to bear with the cliched segments knowing that something unexpected and imaginative was apt to turn up soon.

Among the show’s many highlights were the searing Mahavishnu Orchestra-style blast of “Lords of Karma” and the long, episodic journey through “Echo” in which chugging metal alternated with rippling loveliness. The crowning moment came with “The Crush of Love,” a soaring tribute to Hendrix’s searching, aching lyricism--that is, until Satriani and Hamm suddenly veered into a hot, playful run through Sly Stone’s “If You Want Me to Stay.” Listening to Satriani evoke Sly’s shifting vocal hues on his guitar was nothing less than delicious.

Between songs, Satriani came off as a friendly, unassuming frontman--not a tribute-demanding guitar hero but just a guy named Joe with the stubble of an incipient beard, fast fingers and a psychedelic-looking get-up.

Satriani and band saved their loudest, wildest wailing for “Satch Boogie” and “Surfing With the Alien,” the two blitz-rockers that ended the 105-minute show. In the hands of a typically Conanistic guitar barbarian, such songs would have been deadly bludgeons. For Satriani, they were zesty kickers to a tasty display.