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This show had a long start-up. In November I arrived in Brazil one day before Manowar were supposed to play in Rio. As I had not seen Manowar live for a long time I bought myself a ticket. This to learn on the day that Manowar had cancelled the show. I was in contact with promoters of the show and they promised to send my money back through paypall. Now I realized they lost a large amount and I already knew that Marty Friedman would come to Rio when I was back in town in June. So I told them to keep the money and swap my ticket for one of the Marty Friedman show. This was possible, but I received the tickets through whatsapp only the week before the show. Tickets? yes, as Valerio was so nice to send me two tickets as the Manowar show was much more expensive than the Kiko Loureiro show. So I could invite a friend. Bruno was more than pleased to join me, so we agreed to meet inside Sacadura 154. This venue is located in the centre , where many offices are and nights can be grim. Not so much in the street of the venue, where lots of live music could be heard, all displaying samba or pagode, which is not really my thing. Still the atmosphere on the street was good.
Now I said that Marty Friedman would play, but it turned out he was a guest on this tour. The show itself was by Kiko Loureiro a Brazilian most known from his years with Angra and Megadeth. The venue said doors 20:00 and show 22:00. Now I learned the hard way once that in Brazil show 22:00 means the headlier starts at that time. I did read about a support somewhere (not at the venue's page) so I decided to aim at 20:30 as I like to check out support bands. Being a bit later I missed the first song by Andy Addams. I never heard of Andy before. In spite of his english name he grew up in Colombia and spoke Portuguese to us. More important his music was rather fine. A guitar shredder of sorts with lights over his clothes and a bass and drum supporting him during lots of instrumentals where even a medley of famous songs was treated on instrumental versions. This was a nice opener fitting well with the headliners.
In spite of Josie's warning not to take the time scheule too serious in Brazil (see Friburgo Rock Festival) it was at 22:00 that lights went off and Kiko Loureiro came on. He started with three instrumentals and that sounded very good. Megadeth was next and he also sung on a recently written song. I thought his voice OK, but not at Gary Moore's level yet. I mention Gary Moore as some of the instrumental guitar singing was not miles away from that. Introducing the band I only understood later that Bruno on drums and Felipe on bass play in the current Angra band. Now I like me some Angra, but I am hardly their biggest fan. So when we got a medley of Angra songs I did not recognize them all, but the instrumental versions came over well in medley format. I must say that the Megadeth hereafetr sounded better to me with Conquer or Die and Dystopia. Kiko took care of vocals and with originals by Dave Mustaine he managed well. Further down the show we got a vocalist on stage Alirio Netto. Again unknown to me, but he had a good voice for covering soe more Angra work. This ended with an acoustic two man set-up which brought the song where Milton Nascimento sings on CD and the opening of Heaven and Hell. The audience showed they were carioca meanwhile by starting to sing to Kiko(rara) some Calcinha Preta. Jokes Bruno needed to explain to me afterwards.
Taking the barstools of the stage the moment came where I was waiting for most Marty Friedman would join in. And as good as Kiko might have been (and that as very good) it was Marty that managed to lift the show to even higher levels. He was allowed to take the main part for a while and Tornado of Souls did pass instrumental. He than tried to be as Brazilian as he could by playing Asa Branca / Brasileirinho. Songs that all in Brazil know, but it sounded very Marty Friedman to me. Hereafter we got a song of Drama his latest album. Tearful Confession was beautiful and I did something out of character. The whole evening I saw lots of cameras filming before me. During this song not so many, so I picked my phone and filmed a part of the calm opening and a part of the metalling up of the song.Than it was back to Angra with a guitar ruled version of Rebirth after which the band left the stage. The shouts for mais um from the audience were heard and the band came back with Alirio on vocals to play Stormbringer Unfortunately no more Marty and hereafer the party was over. One great evening for those into shredding guitars, with lots of melody and emotion blended in to keep things interesting. Marty Friedman showing again why he is one of my absolute favourite guitarists and Kiko turned out to be pretty fine too.
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