What about him? American of evident Italian origins, he is a genius of hard-rock and heavy metal guitar, but also the author of romantic melodies and histrionic inventions with amazing effects.
He spanned three decades, from the beginning with Joe Satriani, to the collaboration with Frank Zappa, Alcatrazz and Whitesnake, up to his solo career, entering right into the legends of this instrument.
Several times he participated in the G3, the event in which the 3 best guitarists in the world play together in a single concert. In one of these, he performed with the triple neck guitar (as seen in the photo) of Ibanez, of which he is endorser since the '80s and that has created countless custom guitars for him, including this one.
Steve shows off a crazy class and a mysterious personality. His date of birth (06/06/1960) contributes to feeding his mystical aura: he turned 6 years old on 06/06/1966...
From a technical point of view, we are in front of an alien. Between legato, tapping, superharmonics and super-fast passages, there is also space for exciting ballads such as Tender Surrender and For the love of God, which plays live with incredible passion and involvement. Ah, I forgot, in many of his pieces, his guitar speaks.
A treat, among many, is the album The 7th song: not everyone knows that Steve is used to putting ballads as the seventh track on his records. For this, he collected all the seventh songs in an album, adding some unpublished ones. Needless to say, the result is sublime. I was lucky enough to see him twice live, to meet him in person and even to receive a gift from him. Maybe I will talk about this in detail in another post.

DRUMS: MIKE PORTNOY

Mike Portnoy

The great Mike Portnoy was, together with John Petrucci, the founder of Dream Theater, the most important progressive metal band of the last 25 years.

He is a drummer with extraordinary rhythmic ability and frightening speed.
Fantasy, technique with both hands and feet: a complete musician. Specializing in gassing fans with his bubbly performances, Mike has also been nicknamed "The Camel" by the other members of the band. If you go to see some live, you will soon understand why.
In 2004 I was able to attend the spectacular Dream Theater live at the Palalottomatica in Rome...I'll talk about it even later, but I assure you that I still remember the ecstasy feeling after the monstrous 3 and a half hours of Mike performance.
Road roller and fine performer, he is able to measure itself with the enthralling power of metal, but at the same time with the odd times of progressive and fusion. The Dance of Eternity is a song to be studied to understand how it can be possible to create such rhythms. His drum set, a Tama with double kick drum, has two particular characteristics: the first is that Portnoy loves to constantly change its livery. In fact, at the beginning of each concert, it's covered until the lights go down. The second is that it has two workstations with three total kick drums. So Mike, turning on his stool, finds a second set whenever he wants.
In 2010, as a good hothead, he left Dream Theater, officially to try to explore new musical horizons and providing to the undersigned, weeks of suffering and despair.

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BASS: FASO

Faso

Among the many international bass players on the rock scene, I was really undecided.

There are tons of amazing musicians like Who's John Entwistle, Deep Purple's Roger Glover, Paul McCartney and John Paul Jones.
But to Faso (born Nicola Fasani) of Elio e le Storie Tese, I'm too attached.
For me he is the perfect bass player: one who, despite being left-handed, plays the bass as a right-handed, can do anything. In addition, he is also a brilliant character and a fine humorist, like all EELST.
He plays a Yamaha 6-string bass, which has a truly original story. It was bought for a negligible amount as it was defective, Faso had it repaired and kept it, believing that the sound had even improved.
It became the bass he would use in all live shows and studio recordings with EELST. Try to listen to Servi della Gleba and you will understand that he wasn't absolutely wrong.
I had the pleasure of seeing it live several times: amazing, it seems recorded. Slap, scales and pounding and precise rhythm, fantasy and passion: in short, like the rest of the band, a musician who, by skill and technique, can truly measure himself with anyone.
And simultaneously, he can dub Beavis and Butt-Head. Absolute myth.

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KEYBOARDS: JORDAN RUDESS

Jordan Rudess

The Professor of keyboards: Jordan is a kind of playing machine.

A pianist with excellent skills, lent to progressive metal, of which, thanks to the long-standing militancy in Dream Theater, he has become a prominent exponent.
I still remember when, in 2004, after leaving the Dream Theater concert in Rome, one of the friends who were with me asked me which of the 5 had impressed me the most.
To my own amazement, I could only answer Jordan Rudess.
This was because, although Portnoy had been the usual protagonist, Petrucci a divine musician, Myung the same hammer and unexpectedly perfect Labrie, Jordan had proved to be the most technical and impeccable of all. And for those who know Dream Theater, that's all to say.
He joined the band in place of Derek Sherinian and he changed its fortunes, at a time when ideas were scarce and after so many successes, the decline was looming.
Listen to the Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory album and I'm sure you'll understand why I chose him to be part of my ideal band.

Ok, these are my five, the musicians that I would have liked to see play together.

Now I'm curious to know which is your dream band...if you like, write it in the comments or feel free to take inspiration from my post to create a similar one. But, in this case, let me know...I want to read it.

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Thanks to all of you for reading my article.

If you liked it, share it on your blog and write me a comment with your impressions.

See you soon and...

ROCK ON! 🤘🙌

GM

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