Marty Friedman to Perform Japanese National Anthem at D1GP Event in Odaiba Japan

Many anime fans have poor taste in music. Many praise plaigarized music coming from composers and empty pop music made by committee.

Me, I love metal, and that brings me to two related stories involving former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman, who is better than any Japanese guitarist ever.

He is quite well known in Japan for his solo career as a musician and as a commentator on American issues for many Japanese variety programs. He formerly hosted the show Hebi Meta-san with gravure idol Yoko Kumada and is a columnist for many magazines and publications in Japan such as Nikkei Entertainment, for which he writes a monthly column.

He will be performing the Japanese national anthem before the start of the D1 Grand Prix race in Odaiba, which makes him the first foreign musician to play the anthem at a major sporting event in Japanese history along with offering commentary during the race broadcast on Japanese TV to promote his newly released album Tokyo Jukebox.

This performance follows two prior performances on May 19th atop the Tokyo Tower in support of the aforementioned album (released yesterday in Japan) in which both performances were sold out and filled to capacity.

Image courtesy of MartyFriedman.com