John Petrucci performs with G3 at ACL Live last month in Austin, Texas. A few months back, John Petrucci—the April 2018 Guitar World cover star—Joe Satriani and Phil Collen sat down with...
John Petrucci performs with G3 at ACL Live last month in Austin, Texas.
A few months back, John Petrucci—the April 2018 Guitar World cover star—Joe Satriani and Phil Collen sat down with Guitar World's former editor-in-chief, Brad Tolinski (now with BackStory Events), to discuss their then-ongoing G3 Tour. Tolinski asked the Dream Theater guitarist if there's one song that's particularly challenging to play in a live setting.
"It's 'Damage Control' from my [2005] album, Suspended Animation. It's just a crazy...I've said this before—I feel like I'm doing damage control the entire time I'm playing. It just has so many weird things about it—time signatures and technical challenges and things. A concentration song, that one."
Satriani (Guitar World's March 2018 cover star) chimed in at this point: "'Damage Control' is...It's traumatic to stand on the side of the stage and watch him get through it. Because it starts heavy and then you go, 'Okay, I've got to get ready for this. I'm gonna watch, I'm gonna learn something.' But it's so intense, and what he describes is just the tip of the iceberg of what as a guitar player he accomplishes.
"And with the rest of the band. Because not only is it difficult to play, but they're also creating music for an audience. So there's also that and it's hard to put that into words what that is. But that's usually at the end of the song—I'm the one sweating at the side of the stage. And I figure 'I've gotta go backstage and start warming up!'
"But it's funny that you mention like what is the song that's the hardest. There's two things at play. There are song that have parts that we focus on as players—a part