Joe Satriani live in concert at Rabindra Sarobar stadium; the crowd gets into the groove. Pictures by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Today it is all about the food of love. On Sunday night about two thousand people walked away from the Rabindra Sarobar stadium with star light in their eyes, joy in their hearts and a song on their lips.

Guitar maestro Joe Satriani had just finished a phenomenal concert unveiling a tapestry of the richest hues. Blinding technical expertise and precision combined with a melodic sense and gut-level grooves set up by the bass and drums that you could instantly relate to, left us spellbound and tongue-tied. He made the guitar talk in response to his every bidding. Using feedback, harmonics, his whammy bar and various finger techniques he made it howl, shriek, cry, moan, ache, exult, purr, thunder and whisper. All the time he was in total control.

All the time it was musical even to the point of being soothing while it shrieked. How did he do it?

He did not make us wait. Sharp at sevenish, after a short opening set by Mumbai band Brahma, he stormed on to the stage and as a trio ?with bassist Matt Bisonette and Jeff Campiteli on drums ? they settled into a tight rock groove. Jimi Hendrix has been an important inspiration for Satriani and the first two or three tracks were reminiscent of that great trio that called themselves Band of Gypsys ? Jimi Hendrix, drummer-vocalist Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox ? and that memorable concert they did in 1969 at Madison Square Gardens. In fact, about two-thirds of the way through the concert the band actually broke into a few riffs from Machine Gun, a well-known Hendrix song, as a fitting tribute to that great legend.

Satriani is a man of few words so he did not address the crowd often and we did not get to know the names of many of the pieces but when he did speak he was relaxed, warm and friendly. No God of Guitar aura when he spoke. That happened when he played, occasionally raising an arm in a messianic gesture that made the crowd go crazy.

About half-an-hour into the show Satriani introduced rhythm guitar player Galen Henson who stayed on stage for most of the songs from that point on.

And after a particularly spacy, mellow and charming piece Satriani announced, “Something special for you tonight for letting us jam like that” and they did the only vocal piece of the evening, a humorous song called Strange about a guy going through a hard time so sometimes he feels his brains might spill out on the floor and sometimes he wants to unscrew his head and put it on the shelf.

The versatility of the band was evident in a couple of intricate pieces with a distinctive Indian feel in which the time signatures changed from 9/8 to 4/4 along with tempo changes ? sudden, effective and perfectly co-ordinated.

Two of the most lyrical pieces of the evening were Star Night and Moroccan Sunset. The first, from the album Strange, Beautiful Music was about “looking into the sky and askin’ God (slight laugh) what goes on.”

“It truly is a beautiful night. And this is about another such night” was the introduction to Moroccan Sunset, a beautifully arranged and constructed piece with an authentic Middle-Eastern flavour with drummer Jeff Campiteli using some very tasteful percussive effect.

To my mind, Satriani, Campiteli and Bisonette can achieve amazing levels of collective virtuosity and in the nearly three-hour concert with no breaks, they covered a wide gamut of styles and moods and it was riveting all the way, with some parts where you just wanted to sway to the haunting melody and catchy groove.

The Rabindra Sarobar stadium witnessed a concert of this magnitude by an internationally acclaimed artiste for the first time. One hopes there will be more such events held there.