Ex-MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman took the stage with his former band during the iconic thrash metal band’s first-ever gig at Tokyo, Japan’s famed Budokan
Marty joined MEGADETH for three songs toward the end of the main set on Monday, February 27, to play “Countdown To Extinction“, “Tornado Of Souls” and “Symphony Of Destruction“.
You can check out some fan-filmed video footage below.
MEGADETH’s Budokan setlist was as follows:
- Hangar 18
- Dread And The Fugitive Mind
- The Threat Is Real
- Angry Again
- Soldier On!
- Sweating Bullets
- Trust
- Conquer Or Die!
- Dystopia
- À Tout Le Monde
- Countdown To Extinction (with Marty Friedman)
- Tornado Of Souls (with Marty Friedman)
- Symphony Of Destruction (with Marty Friedman)
- We’ll Be Back
- Peace Sells
Encore:
- Holy Wars… The Punishment Due
When Marty was asked in a recent interview with Jonathan Montenegro’s “My 3 Questions To” about how the Budokan reunion with MEGADETH came to fruition, he replied: “Really about as simple as any approach could possibly be. Dave said, ‘We’re playing in Japan in February. You wanna jam?’ And I’m, like, ‘Sure.’ And that was really it. I mean, it’s really something that simple. So, I wish I had a more detailed answer for you, but that’s about it.”
Marty was also asked what his favorite MEGADETH album was from his time with the group, to which he replied: “If you would have asked me at the time that I was in MEGADETH, I would have definitely whatever album we were working on at the time, because I can tell you with a hundred percent certainty that anything that we did when I was in the band was a complete effort to do our absolute best, and when it was finished and we all thought it was done, we signed off on it and we knew it was the best album that we could make and it was really what represented us at that period of time.”
He continued: “Now, looking back over all these years, I haven’t really heard everything in the details that I’ve listened to it when I was in the band, but I would probably say that my favorite record is somewhere between ‘Rust In Peace‘ and ‘Countdown [To Extinction]‘. But my favorite period of time in the band was probably ‘Youthanasia‘ and ‘Cryptic Writings‘.
“With this MEGADETH thing coming up, it’s really kind of forced me to think about MEGADETH stuff, and it’s been a while, and it’s kind of fun looking back through all this stuff,” Friedman added.
Back on February 14, Marty uploaded a video message to social media in which he said: “What’s up, everybody? This is Marty Friedman here. Just a quick announcement to let you all know that I’m gonna be joining my good friends in MEGADETH on stage at the Budokan in Tokyo on February 27th.
“It’s been a real long time since I’ve been on the same stage with Dave Mustaine making music, and we’ve both taken severely different paths in our life since then,” he continued. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m so extremely proud of the part that I played in MEGADETH‘s history and MEGADETH‘s legacy, and I’m also very, very proud of the achievements that the band has done in my absence. But for right now, at this moment, I just feel immense joy and serious adrenaline to look forward to playing together at this very, very cool place. So I just really wish you could be there, and I hope to see you soon.”
Dave Mustaine recently spoke with Rolling Stone about reuniting with Friedman at the Budokan concert, saying: “When Marty said, ‘Hey, I can play at this gig,’ I thought, ‘This is so magnificent.’ It’s gonna be so much fun to get Kiko [Loureiro, current MEGADETH guitarist] and Marty together, because they’re both geniuses on guitar. So this is like a gigantic birthday and Christmas present for me.”
Mustaine continued: “We haven’t been to Japan in a long time. I thought that inviting Marty was just a very thoughtful thing to do. MEGADETH has not been a band has had a lot of guest appearances from other players. We are not a jam band. I asked Kiko how he felt about this, and Kiko is completely confident in his guitar playing.
“This is not like when THE POLICE handed their instruments to U2 to pass the torch,” he added. “This is doing something really grateful to the Japanese audience. We want it to be a gift. So everybody who bought that ticket before today, you’re welcome. … I’m really looking forward to this moment. It’s gonna be great.”
The Budokan concert livestreamed on February 27 and is now available on demand for a couple of days at this location.
