By Martin Popoff
And finally, I had to ask Billy to critique the three guitarists who make up this year's G3.
"I hear a lot of Hendrix moves in Satriani's playing, but not the usual Hendrix stuff. It really sounds like Hendrix plus 20 years. It really sounds like an evolution of what Hendrix did, which is pretty interesting. And melodically, he puts out amazing music on the guitar and performs it in a way that is interesting even to people who are not guitarists, which is tough to do. Steve of course is kind of a phenomenon on his own. He's really a unique individual. His playing ability and focus as a musician is probably as great as anyone I've ever known. He knows what he wants and knows how he wants to get it and he gets it. He works hard at it. And his compositions are very challenging to play, and Steve's wonderful guy. And every night he just slays. I just watch the faces on the crowd when Steve is playing. They can't believe what they're seeing. They're just laughing because it's impossible. And then John Petrucci, I have to sadly admit that I've only heard a little bit of Dream Theater here and there. Unfortunately due to my life situation, I don't really have a lot of time to listen to music. If I do have time to listen to something, I listen to something that I already know. The other night on the bus, I watched Metropolis, the DVD, f**king spectacular, great, amazing. John Myung, great bass player. But every night working with Petrucci, I'm overwhelmed with his ability to duplicate these complex amazing melodies that are really memorable. They should record the show and put it out as a record. Because the material he does in the show is just great. It's in my head all the time. It's really memorable but it's also classical and complex."