It's truly a match made in rock and roll heaven. Take about 80 true rock and roll fans, team them up with rock and roll legends, treat them all like rock stars on a world tour in five days, and you've got Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp!

      Representing the likes of Bad Company, Boston, Kiss, the Monkees and more, we meet the Rock and Roll Fantasy staff counselors, Simon Kirke, Mark Slaughter, Barry Goudreau, Kip Winger, Peter Tork, Bruce Kulick, Mark Farner, Teddy Andreadis and Jeff Baxter. They're the home base team that David Fishof gathered this time around to lead participants in individual bands. "Campers" wait to "audition" in front of a panel of professional rockers who will group them into bands that will rehearse what seems like 24 hours a day, culminating in a competition the last night at B.B. King’s club. Then there's the guest lecturers: Jon Anderson of Yes, Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister, George Thorogood, Joe Satriani, Dr. John, Mark Farner of Grand Funk and Levon Helm.

      It's a five-day sojourn in NYC, starting out at Gibson Studios. After about a four hour jam-fest and an appearance and talk from Max Weinberg (E Street Band), we head to Guitar Center for dinner and the band lineup announcements.

      "I did some tours with Ringo's All Star band around about the same time that David Fishof was doing the second camp in L.A.," Simon Kirke of Bad Company told me the next day as we sat outside one of the many recording studios lining the Gibson hallways. "I got to know David when I did the first Ringo tour, and he called me up and asked me if I'd like to be a camp counselor. I've always loved to teach. I teach drums now in my home in Manhattan. So I enjoyed it, and this is my fourth camp."

      After a couple of days here, I can truly see how one can get addicted to all the musically intoxicating events. While waiting to head over to the Sirius radio complex in Manhattan to record each band's original song in a studio adjacent to the one used daily by Howard Stern, I catch up with Bruce Kulick, who spent a decade with rock icons Kiss. "This is my third time, actually," he says. "It takes a special blend of not only your resume and career, but your temperament and personality. Some people are so talented, [but] they can't do a one-to-one with people. For me, even right before joining Kiss, I was giving guitar lessons. I was always approachable to the fans.

      "I have that same enthusiasm when I see some of these artists, like Dickey Betts," he continues. "I used to go to the Fillmore to see the Allman Brothers. And Yes was one of my favorite bands growing up. So to actually back up Jon Anderson, I was almost ready to cry, you know?"

      At Sirrius radio I met a woman who gave her husband the camp experience as a gift for his 50th birthday. Another woman from Staten Island, N.Y., encouraged her husband to come fulfill his dream after undergoing a kidney transplant and an aortic valve replacement only a year earlier.

      After a noon jam the third day into the camp, Kip Winger says, "I love doing the jams, meeting all these people. It's a great network thing. This is really fun."

      I checked out Mark Slaughter's rehearsal with his camp band at Ultrasound Studios downtown. "I think I've got the best band ever," he says. "We got Number One for the best song last night, and tonight we're going to try to kick some butt and take home the trophy. We're having a good time."

      As the campers pack up their stuff from the studios on the last day and we head to B.B. King’s, there's an air of sadness and at the same time a lot of great memories. "It's a thrill for us, being counselors," Barry Goudreau of Boston says. "I think you have to make music because you want to do it, you love to do it. That's why all these people are here. I think most of them don't expect to have any real professional success at it." He sums it up by noting, "Spencer Davis, I just met him for the first time yesterday. One of the first records I ever bought was his Keep On Running. It's a thrill for me too!"

      The night was theirs at B.B. King's for the final event, dreams fulfilled battling onstage in front of the public, TV and press. They were rock stars, at least for one night. The neon sign outside proudly read: "Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp Battle of the Bands: SOLD OUT!"