Check Out First Photos Of MARTY FRIEDMAN With MEGADETH Posted From Tokyo Concert Soundcheck

Ex-MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman performed a soundcheck with his former band prior to the group’s first-ever gig at Tokyo, Japan’s legendary Budokan

Marty will be joining MEGADETH on stage for three songs during the concert’s encore. Some photos of Friedman reunited with MEGADETH and from the soundcheck can be seen below courtesy of Justis Mustaine‘s Instagram account, “Mellowdeath Argentina” and current guitarist Kiko Loureiro‘s Facebook page.

When Marty was asked how he was approached to reunite with his former band at the Japan concert, he told “My 3 Questions To“: “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.”

When asked if he has a favorite MEGADETH album from his time with the band, Marty 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. 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.

MEGADETH‘s concert at Budokan, which will be livestreamed on February 27 and available on demand for a couple of days after, marks the first time in over 20 years that Friedman has played live with the band.