OVER THE COURSE of his nearly 40-year career, Dream Theater guitar god John Petrucci has played thousands of shows across the globe. And guess what? Not all of them have been perfect. “Oh, yes, I’m mortal,” he says with a laugh. “Even though I try to nail all of my parts night after night, I’m going to screw up occasionally. It happens.”
How does Petrucci not allow onstage flubs to bother him? By simply choosing not to get rattled. “The worst thing you can do is beat yourself up when you make a mistake,” he says. “If you start to become too self-conscious, you’ll get in a downward spiral and you’ll make another mistake. Before you know it, you’ve made a string of mistakes and your whole gig will be a disaster, all because you chose to dwell on one little screw-up that probably nobody else even noticed. Things go by so fast — a lot of people never catch that error you made. On the other hand, if you blatantly call attention to yourself, believe me,
