Ron Onesti: What would your fantasy music mash-up be?

Rock 'n' roll has "officially" been around for 60-plus years. Hundreds of bands and thousands of musicians and vocalists have put their rockin' riffs out there for us to bob our heads up and down, the way Wayne and Garth so poignantly displayed in "Wayne's World" to the tune of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

For me, I have been air-guitaring and dashboard keyboard-playing for about 40 years. That translates to hundreds of my solo performances to "Stairway to Heaven," "Magic Carpet Ride," and "Free Bird." And it never gets old, at least to me. However, I can't speak about my family, who has had to witness my Davy Jones/Axl Rose shimmy across the dining room floor on more occasions than I would admit to - or my "at the top of my lungs" rendition of "Beginnings" by the band Chicago as my family was trapped with me in the car on a road trip.

But because my love for all music has never waned, I must admit that something a bit fresh is always nice. The contemporary music coming out today isn't really my cup of Nestle's Quik (when was the last time you had a tall, cold glass of that?). So once in a while, I try to "mix it up" for my guests at The Arcada.

I often fantasize about "what if" concerts. For example, what if two of my favorite bands, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, played together on the same night, on the same stage? The cool thing about being in this business and having my own place is that I can make things happen that I like. So how can I make this fantasy mashup happen? It is for me to figure out!

This Saturday night, it all comes together! So here's the "scoop" of "Rock 'N' Roll Rocky Road:" I am bringing together Kashmir, the Led Zeppelin tribute band, and mashing-them up with Echoes of Pompei, the Pink Floyd tribute, and adding an incredible laser light show outdoors at Vasa Park in South Elgin (just a few minutes north of The Arcada on Route 31). Bam! A rock 'n' roll fantasy night!

I have worked with both bands separately many times before, but never together, and after working with many similarly styled acts, these bands are the tops. Musically, both acts are just fabulous. Kashmir, and its fearless leader Frank Livingston, completely embodies the Zeppelin experience. The band is spot-on musically, including the difficult vocalizations of Robert Plant. And Livingston's personification of Jimmy Page is hauntingly good, down to his bow-on-guitar jam in the audience.

Echoes - well, I can't say enough about this band. Twin brothers are joined by twelve just amazing musicians and backup singers to create a Pink Floyd salute like I have never witnessed before. And the laser effects wizardry of Joe Marchetti will create a 360-degree visual experience along the trees of Vasa Park … OMG what a night! (And at only $25 for adults and $10 for kids … a FAMILY rock 'n' roll fantasy night!)

I have done this sort of thing a few times before and each time it made for a truly memorable night. Actually, my very first show at the Arcada Theatre was a fantasy mash-up. I had often wondered what it would be like if the Beatles played with Paul McCartney's Wings. So I hired one of the country's top Beatles tribute bands, American English, and joined them with the original members of the Wings. That's right! I worked for months to wrangle them together, and with the help of American English leader Eric Michaels, we made an incredible and rare thing happen!

First, we tracked down Denny Laine, who was Paul's partner in founding Wings. He was also one of the founding members of Moody Blues, so he was a cool guy to get. Then we sought out the other members of the band, excluding Paul and Linda McCartney, of course. One by one, we found them, from London, Los Angeles and New Orleans, and they all agreed to play in my fantasy show!

So American English opened the show in their 1964, Ed Sullivan Show-era suits. They did an hour of just Beatlemania. Then the Paul McCartney character put his head down and a single blue light remained on him. All the other lights went black and the rest of the American English guys left the stage as the entire Wings band took their places. After 20 long seconds of silence, the familiar and powerful opening to the Wings' hit "Jet" filled the theater as the lights blasted on to reveal the stage complete with Laine, those amazing Wings' horns and the rest of the guys! For the finale, the American English guys joined Wings onstage, and it was mop-topped mayhem!

These types of shows are really so much fun. There are no egos to consider, no technical issues insurmountable. Just a bunch of people who love the music and are protective of the integrity of the original songs, while at the same time daring enough to join together as superfan-entertainers!

As we get on in our years, and our music gets increasingly more meaningful to us, I think on a daily basis about ways to keep it alive and fresh. Many of these bands are replacing original members with new musicians and vocalists. How many of our original musical heroes will actually be still performing in 10 years? I shudder to think about it. Aside from "the Mick" and other Rolling Stones, who will survive the Armageddon? There will be few music heroes still out there.

But the music MUST endure, and there MUST be live performances. So see as many of your musical icons as you can now, while they are still around performing. How many of us wish now that we saw John Lennon, Elvis, even Joan Rivers and Frank Sinatra, just one more time, or even at all? I'm getting musically emotional …

Which bands would you like to see "mashed-up" together? Email me, ron@oshows.com, with your suggestions. Let's have fun with this!

• Ron Onesti is president and CEO of The Onesti Entertainment Corp. and The Historic Arcada Theatre in St. Charles. Celebrity questions and comments? Email ron@oshows.com.