My First Gig

“My Face Melted!” Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci relives his life-changing experience seeing Rush as a 15 year old...

“It may have been Uniondale on Long Island rather than the capital of Nepal, but I can still remember the pungent smell that penetrated the arena on that cold winter night in 1982... ‘Pulling into Kathmandu/Smoke rings fill the air...’ I was a 15-year-old budding musician attending my very first concert ? Rush ? at the fabled Coliseum; the venue of the Gods! If you lived on Long Island, it was the place to see concerts. All the rock giants ? from Iron Maiden to The Who to Black Sabbath ? had played there.

“I either drew or painted just about every Rush album cover from the moment I discovered the band and became a super-fan. As a young guitarist, I spent hours and hours each day learning and practising as many for days sometimes, dropping the needle of my record player on the same spot over and over, slowing down the speed of the turntable to 16rpm just to make sure I had every single note correct before I practiced that particular lick for weeks. The band I was in at the time played all the Rush classics like ‘Working Man’, ‘The Spirit Of Radio’, ‘Red Barchetta’, ‘YYZ’ and ‘Xanadu’. We took pride in being able to impress friends with our versions of songs by the greatest band ever.

“Since this was my first concert and I didn’t have any experience buying concert tickets, our seats were pretty bad. We were up high and couldn’t have been further from the stage. It really didn’t matter much to me, though. I was pumped just to be in the same building as Rush. When the lights went down and the intro tape for ‘The Spirit Of Radio’ flew from Alex’s fingers into my ears. Even though it was the very same backwards and forwards, it was like seeing God himself. I was completely mesmerized. Granted, the band members looked pretty small because they were so far from our seats. But the incredibly loud sound, the amazing light show, the equipment on stage and the deafening roar of thousands of Rush fans made me realise that I too wanted to do that for the rest of my life. I wanted it to be me on that stage someday!

“The band played my all-time favourite, ‘La Villa Strangiato’ from the ‘Hemispheres’ album. It’s got one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded in the middle breakdown section. But the version Alex played that evening provided what is still one of the most mindblowing, influential and religious musical experiences I’ve had. After milking the first half of the solo with melodic and blues-infused phrases of pure genius, Alex then built the finale into an unimaginable climax of warp-speed notes that burst into the arena in a way I’d never experienced before. My face melted! My first ever gig was a momentous and epic experience on so many levels. I can honestly say it changed my life!”