“We’ve been writing new music and we want to go back out on tour together." Joe Satriani and Steve Vai announce the new SatchVai Band and Surfing With the Hydra tour

News
By
published

The news comes at the end of a busy year of touring for the two guitar virtuosos

Joe Satriani (left) and Steve Vai perform onstage together in 2024
(Image credit: Jon Luini/Courtesy MADInk PR)

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have been writing new music together and will take it on tour next summer as the SatchVai Band, the duo announced in a joint video released today.

Dubbed the Surfing with the Hydra tour, the road stint will be the first time in their nearly 50-year musical careers that the two electric guitar virtuosos have performed as band members. Their tour begins June 13, 2025 in Europe, with more dates to be announced.

Joe Satriani & Steve Vai Announce the SATCHVAI BAND "Surfing With The Hydra" 2025 Tour - YouTube Joe Satriani & Steve Vai Announce the SATCHVAI BAND
Watch On

This past spring, the guitarists and their respective bands played their first tour together — outside of their G3 dates — where they performed across select U.S. cities. Since then they've merged their creative talents for the time first to create new songs.

“We’ve been writing new music and we want to go back out on tour together,” Vai says in the newly released video, “but this time with a little bit of a twist."

Adds Satriani, “The Satch-Vai tour was such a blast that Steve and I thought, Hey, we haven't had enough. We want more!”

The news comes at the end of a busy stretch for the two guitarists. Both played in 2024 on an abbreviated G3 tour and on the Satch-Vai tour. Afterward, Satriani took part in Sammy Hagar's Best of all Worlds tour, where he performed Van Halen–era music.

Vai, meanwhile, has been performing 1980s King Crimson music in the group Beat, featuring Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Danny Carey.

The SatchVai Band's road show will run through July and include stops in major cities, including London, Paris, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. It will also include performances at major European summer festivals, such as Hellfest, Umbria Jazz Festival and Guitares en Scene Fest.

Pre-sale tickets for the tour will be available starting December 11 and 12, with general sales opening on Friday, December 13. More information is available at SATCHVAIBAND.

Categories
Elizabeth Swann

Elizabeth Swann is a devoted follower of prog-folk and has reported on the scene from far-flung places around the globe for The Evening Standard, Forbes, HuffPost, Prog, Wired, Popular Mechanics and The New Yorker. She treasures her collection of rare live Bert Jansch and John Renbourn reel-to-reel recordings and souvenir teaspoons collected from her travels through the Appalachians. When she’s not leaning over her Stella 12-string acoustic, she’s probably bent over her workbench with a soldering iron, modding some cheap synthesizer or effect pedal she pulled from a skip. Her favorite hobbies are making herbal wine and delivering sharp comebacks to men who ask if she’s the same Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean. (She is not.)