Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson

Now here's a double bill that's either heaven or hell, depending on your perspective. Far be it from me to tell you what to think, but here I am, so I vote for the latter. A good 99 percent of the time, any guitar solo over 12 bars long feels like damnation, and when the whole song is based around riffing, whaling, scaling and shredding, just enduring it can feel like an eternity. Even Stevie Ray figured out that less is more after he sobered up. Sure, Satriani and Johnson can play, and if you're the kind who hangs around music stores for kicks, thumbs through guitar magazines at 7-Eleven and spends a whole concert staring at the guitarists' fingers, well, dude, here's your hog heaven. But one man's thrilling fretboard fireworks--and have you noticed how few chicks attend shows by guys like these?--can make everyone else feel like they're spending hours under the dental drill sans Novocain and laughing gas.