*This post was flagged today, 3/27/2023, for violating Blogger's Malware and Viruses policy. I'm not sure why, but I removed all links to sites other than my own and my youtube and will be requesting review to keep this post on my site. If you see this, I was successful.
Now, back to Sunday, Sunday evening actually, when Marty Friedman came to town to play for a few hundred people at the High Noon Saloon here in Madison. A friend and I arrived a bit late hoping to miss the first band, a local act, only to find they pushed the start time back some because Marty and his opening band had not yet arrived - probably due to the snow. As if on cue, as that set ended crew started bringing in gear as the bus and trailer had arrived.
The opening band, Immortal Guardian, was pretty good, but something was bugging me about them. They play with a prerecorded tape and, as far as I could tell, the only reason was because the guitarist liked to play keyboards with his right hand as he finger-tapped on his guitar with the left. Yes, it can look impressive, but he is the only guitar player in the band and there was obviously chords being strummed. Check out my video of them here and make up your own mind.
Marty Friedman became well known as a guitarist in the band Megadeth from 1990 until 2000. He then left America and has been living in Japan for over 15 years, still putting out solo albums and touring all over. This month he is touring to support his latest release, One Bad M.F. Live. He said during the show that this was his first time in Madison, but in 10 years of Megadeth he may have been here with them, or maybe he just meant as a solo artist. I saw Megadeth on the Peace Sells tour in the late eighties here in Madison, but that was before he joined them.
He has a good backing band and put on an enjoyable, instrumental show. There was one microphone that was only brought out only for him to speak in between songs and the bassist (Kyoshi) and other guitarist (Jordan Ziff) did minimal singing on two songs. The 600-person capacity High Noon Saloon was probably half or more full, just about my perfect size and density. I'd like to see all bands in the same atmosphere, but I don't get to call those shots. My friend got a good spot leaning on the end of the bar near the stage and that's where we camped for the show. I took a lot of pictures that hardly any turned out unfortunately, and I got a lot of good video that I've been re-watching the last couple days. You can see all my videos on my YouTube channel here, also listed in the right column.
Marty Friedman - Ashes / Forbidden / Tornado
I took more videos than usual this show - 6, plus one of the opening band - for a few reasons. First of all, I like to watch them. Simple as that. Also, there was no one behind me but bartenders and the camera was dimly lit and in front of my face - I watched the show over the camera but still able to control the camera (except for the shaking - I was still rocking out, after all!). But mostly, I'm just not terribly familiar with all of his music and an accurate, recent setlist was not found online for me to know when to look out for the parts I wanted to get on video. Still, even with 6 songs recorded I spent much more time with the phone in my pocket enjoying the show.
Here's one that I'm sure was added to the set due to the popularity of Queen recently:
Marty Friedman (w/Jordan Ziff) - Bohemian Rhapsody
That's my latest live music fix, now to look for the next. I've not seen any upcoming shows that are to my taste yet, but I'll always keep looking!
Previous LLP Posts...
LLP 1 - Pain
LLP 2 - Nightwish
LLP 3 - Die Antwoord
LLP 4 - Pain part 2
LLP 5 - Andrew Bird LIVE
LLP 6 - Nightwish part 2
LLP 7 - Paramore
LLP 8 - Newsted
LLP 9 - U.D.O. LIVE
LLP 10 - Nightwish Imaginaerum Movie
LLP 11 - Kiss
LLP 12 - Rick Springfield
LLP 13 - Hyrax
LLP 14 - In This Moment
LLP 15 - Faster Pussycat LIVE
LLP 16 - Sebastian Bach
LLP 17 - Cradle Of Thorns
LLP 18 - Amaranthe
LLP 19 - Lindemann
LLP 20 - Halestorm
LLP 21 - Garbage LIVE
LLP 22 - Arcade
LLP 23 - Nightwish LIVE
LLP 24 - Ace Frehley
LLP 25 - Darkc3ll
LLP 26 - Dementia
LLP 27 - Rammstein
LLP 28 - Marilyn Manson LIVE
LLP 29 - The Harp Twins LIVE
LLP 30 - Diamante
LLP 31 - Steel Panther LIVE
LLP 32 - Scum Of The Earth
LLP 33 - Marty Friedman LIVE