The first time I’d heard of Marty Friedman was on the Megadeth Rust in Peace album. Rust in Peace was and still is a landmark album in metal. Much like Master of Puppets it took the genre to another level in musicianship, songwriting and innovation. That lineup of Menza, Mustaine, Ellefson and Friedman is THE thrash lineup of all time in this humble writer’s opinion. So on this night as we were going to watch Marty and his band perform at the Scout Bar I was expecting some good things.
Since Marty left Megadeth after the Risk album he moved to Japan and has become quite a big thing. He’s established himself both on radio shows as well as tv. During this time he’s become a well known celebrity easily eclipsing that of his tenure in Megadeth. He’s put out several albums of solo material including the most recent One Bad M.F. Live featured on this tour. His band which comes as no surprise is predominately Japanese with Chargeee on drums and Kiyoshi Manii on bass. Jordan Ziff an American plays rhythm and some leads (he’s now also touring with RATT). Personally I was never that into Loudness back in the early 80’s so seeing Japanese metal musicians was a novelty for me.
The band launched into LA High Ball which was a good choice and start. I’d never heard the song or actually most of the material played that night. Marty played a medley that did include some Megadeth material I was familiar such as snippets of Ashes in Your Mouth and Tornado of Souls. Though I was disappointed he didn’t play more Megadeth some highlights of the set included; The Ninja from his Shrapnel days and Cacophony with Jason Becker as well as White Worm. All of the other musicians performed their own solos. Chargeee played an extended and energetic drum solo and Kiyoshi played a killer bass solo included parts of Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground. Flea would have dug it too.
