Sadly, we lost one of rock’s great guitarists, Ronnie Montrose, earlier this year. Sammy Hagar, the original lead vocalist of the band named after Ronnie, had planned a reunion for later this year. Due to Ronnie’s death, that obviously wasn’t going to happen, so he did the next best thing: he reunited with the remaining members and called up Chickenfoot bandmate, Joe Satriani, to play guitar in a tribute concert for Ronnie at the Regency Ballroom in San Franciso, the city where Montrose originally formed.
By all eye-witness accounts, it was a pretty spectacular event, and I’m glad to see that something positive came out of the tragic events surrounding Ronnie’s death. All of the classics were covered, but the all-time audience favorite of Bad Motor Scooter is what I’ve chosen to highlight here. It’s the song that got Sammy the gig in Montrose and brought fame all around for its respective members. Joe does an excellent job staying very true to the solo in the middle (adding a little Satch flavor, but not so much that it takes over the song), much to the pleasure of Sam and the boys. The recording here isn’t great (definitely not soundboard — most likely a handheld cam), but the performance is a lot of fun to watch. The guys from Montrose are all about 10-15 years older than Satriani, but they still sound really good. I think that Ronnie would have been proud.
RIP, Ronnie.