So you know people that while they listen to Dream Theater, they never bothered with Guns n' Roses, Malmsteen, Journey and Trans Siberian Orchestra?
At the very worst I knew them all by name already, even though I was not following closely those bands except for TSO.
Got to be honest, I don't follow TSO at all, couldn't tell you one band member other than JSS and that's only because of this thread. Plenty of people who follow Guns N' Roses would generally think of Slash or maybe Izzy Stradlin when talking about guitar players. Even on Chinese Democracy there was much more publicity around Buckethead and Robin Finck than Ron Thal. I pretty much guarantee that most GNR fans wouldn't know him if they fell over him. Same with Soto and Journey, he did one tour with them and does not appear on any album. Again most Journey fans would not be taking any great interest in JSS, Malmsteen's band is a revolving door and no one really cares about anyone else in the band apart from the man himself. That's not to say that I don't follow JSS, I thought he was Yngwie's best ever singer and was great with Axel Rudi Pell as well. He surprised me with his more smooth AOR vocals in Journey but I've always seen him as a metal singer.
To the guy throwing in the likes of Kiss, Alice Cooper etc. I bet pretty much no one could name the current keyboard player for Kiss or Alice Cooper so why would anyone know that Derek Sherinian was. DT made him a bit of a name and he has done his best to run with it but that is it. Portnoy is big in the drumming world undoubtedly but by no means a household name to anyone who is not a fan of DT. He was drummer for a bit in Twisted Sister but I couldn't name any of their previous drummers or indeed any band member apart from Dee Snider. A7X was his most high profile gig but again, only one album and tour and that was really all about the Rev more than MP. Sheehan has played with Mr Big (not so big outside of the US) and DLR but he's a bass player, no one goes to a show to see a bass player do they?
Had I personally heard of all of them? Yes but I'm the type who still buys cd's and reads the booklets from cover to cover!
After saying all that, I'd put them on a bill above Haken who are undoubtedly well thought of but not a big band at all.