Last week, Marty Friedman reunited with his old Megadeth bandmates at Germany’s Wacken Open Air Festival for a ferocious four-song guest spot.
It was only the second time in 23 years that Friedman had shared the stage with Dave Mustaine, following a similarly fleeting cameo appearance during the band’s show at Tokyo’s Budokan arena.
Seeing Friedman link up with Megadeth to perform a quartet of tracks from his 1990-2000 tenure was in itself enough to satisfy the most ardent metal fans, but now the band’s resident electric guitar hero Kiko Loureiro has gone one step further.
In a new video posted to his YouTube channel, the Ibanez signature artist has shared behind-the-scenes footage of the band rehearsing for their Wacken Open Air Festival set.
With Dirk Verbeuren positioned behind an electric drum kit – and the rest of the assembly squeezed into a cozy rehearsal room – Friedman, Mustaine and Loureiro first lock the fretboards of their respective Jackson, Gibson and Ibanez models to trade chugs and harmonize licks over Symphony of Destruction.
Footage of the ensemble tightening up the middle riff section of Tornado of Souls has also kindly been provided by Loureiro.
Perhaps the highlight of the video, though, is seeing Friedman’s gravity-defying solo on Symphony up close. That he’d want to spend every available moment practicing such lead lines is understandable, given he recently told Guitar World those solos would pose the biggest challenge to a Megadeth reunion.
“If there was any challenge [in regards to reuniting with Megadeth] at all, I guess it would be playing the solos the way the fans remember them, which is something I wanted to do,” Friedman offered. “My playing has evolved so much since those songs came out, and there are so many nuances I would naturally do differently now.
“I had to resist the urge to play it like I would in 2023 and stick to the original way. For example, in a couple of those songs, I entered the solo on the downbeat, with the first note being the root of the chord. I would definitely avoid both of those things now, but apparently, I was fine with it back then!”
