DAVE MUSTAINE Shoots Down Rumor MARTY FRIEDMAN Will Play With MEGADETH In Argentina: 'That's Not Going To Happen'

MEGADETH's Dave Mustaine has shot down a rumor that Marty Friedman will join the band on stage in Argentina this spring.

MEGADETH will play three shows at the 15,000-capacity Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires, Argentina in April, just days before the band's ex-guitarist is scheduled to perform a solo concert in the same city.

Last November, Mustaine said that he and his MEGADETH bandmates were "planning a really big surprise" for the first show in Buenos Aires, leading some fans to speculate that Friedman would once again perform with his former group, just as he did one two separate occasions last year. But in a new interview with Clarín, the largest newspaper in Argentina, Dave poured cold water on any hopes that Marty would play with MEGADETH again, saying (translated from Spanish): "No, that's not going to happen. He's not going to play with us. I can promise you it won't happen. Although, mind you, I love Marty and we had a great time playing together. I want to make it clear that there is nothing wrong; it just won't happen."

Friedman rejoined MEGADETH twice on stage in six months last year — first in February 2023 at Tokyo, Japan's famed Budokan and then in early August 2023 at the Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany.

At the 2023 Wacken Open Air, Marty performed four songs with MEGADETH: "Trust", "Tornado Of Souls", "Symphony Of Destruction" and "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due".

At Budokan, Friedman came up on stage for three songs toward the end of MEGADETH's main set: "Countdown To Extinction", "Tornado Of Souls" and "Symphony Of Destruction".

Last September, Friedman told Metalhead Marv of This Day In Metal about the experience of playing with MEGADETH again:  "It was wonderful. We have a wonderful history together, so when something special like that came up, it was kind of a definite thing that I wanted to do. And we both enjoyed it immensely. And I just hope the fans enjoyed it as much as we did. For us, it was just a really nice, nice thing to do to kind of just put an exclamation point on the thing that we did in the history of the band. And, of course, I'm the biggest fan of whatever they do in my absence and just rooting them on the whole way."

After MEGADETH's April 13, 2024 concert at Movistar Arena sold out in a matter of minutes, the band added another date at the same venue, scheduled for the following night, April 14. That concert sold out in two hours, according to concert promoter Ake Music Productions, leading, MEGADETH to announce that it will play a third show at Movistar Arena on April 16.

The Buenos Aires concerts will be part of the Latin American leg of MEGADETH's "Crush The World" tour. The trek will kick off in Lima, Peru on Saturday, April 6 and will include stops in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and México.

MEGADETH's upcoming concerts in Argentina will take place 30 years after the band's first appearance in the country, which took place on December 2, 1994 at the Obras Sanitarias stadium. It was at that gig that the chant "Aguante Megadeth" was started during the song "Symphony Of Destruction", loosely translating to "MEGADETH rocks".

MEGADETH played its first concert with new guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari on September 6, 2023 at Revel in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The 37-year-old Mäntysaari was born in Tampere, Finland and began playing guitar at the age of 12. In 2004, he joined the band WINTERSUN. He has also been a member of SMACKBOUND since 2015.

Mäntysaari stepped into MEGADETH as the replacement for the band's longtime axeman Kiko Loureiro, who announced in September 2023 that he would sit out the next leg of MEGADETH's "Crush The World" tour in order to stay home with his children back in Finland.

Loureiro officially joined MEGADETH in April 2015, about five months after Chris Broderick's exit from the group.

In addition to Mustaine and Mäntysaari, MEGADETH's current lineup includes former SOILWORK drummer Dirk Verbeuren and bassist James LoMenzo.