Marty Friedman contributed to a number of Megadeth’s all-time classic albums, most notably 1990’s Rust in Peace and 1992’s Countdown to Extinction, but had not shared the stage alongside Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine since his exit from the band in 2000. But that all changed on Monday, February 27th, when the guitar virtuoso reunited with Megadeth for three songs during their headlining performance at Tokyo’s legendary Budokan Arena.
“It was just like a perfect exclamation point on everything that we had done together up until this point,” Friedman told Heavy Consequence a day after the show. “You couldn’t have written a better way for the whole thing to play out. It was just perfect timing, just a very natural and organic way to do it.”
Friedman has resided in Japan for the better part of two decades, and both the timing and location of the gig were more than ideal.
“Dave just said, ‘Hey, we’re playing Budokan. Do you want to play?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ And it was one day before I go to tour America – which I’m leaving today [Friedman will be supporting Queensrÿche and headlining his own shows]. The timing was perfect. Budokan is like 20 minutes from where I live and everything has been good between me and Dave for as long as I can remember. When he brought it up to me, it just seemed like such a perfect ‘Yes. Let’s just do it. Let’s destroy it.’ It was great.”
It turns out that the idea of Friedman joining his former band was in the planning stages for about two months prior, and ultimately consisted of him performing on three thrash classics: “Countdown to Extinction,” “Tornado of Souls,” and “Symphony of Destruction.”
“They had one show at a different venue — kind of on the outskirts of Tokyo. So, I went to that venue and rehearsed with them at the soundcheck for that show. It was interesting, because when Dave and I talked about the songs that we were going to do, we both agreed that ‘Countdown’ would be great – because the intro has got a bass solo in the introduction, and that would be great time to introduce me. And I thought, ‘That’s a great idea.’”