It seems the last several weeks have been filled with bad news, like the passing of Ray Burton, Ozzy being diagnosed with Stage 2 Parkinson’s Disease, etc.
Good news is finally here! Megadeth frontman, Dave Mustaine, who was diagnosed with throat cancer in June last year, is back!
On January 17th, Mustaine posted a photo of himself on the Megadeth Facebook page stating just that.
The very next day, footage of rehearsal in Nashville was posted
At 58-years-old, Mustaine went thru chemo and radiation treatments and Monday night, January 20th, the band played their first gig in 15 months, taking to the stage in Helsinki, Finland for an 11-song set. The show kicked off the “Megadethpunch Tour”, in which Megadeth, Five Finger Death Punch and Bad Wolves will hit various countries all over Europe thru February 20th.
In an interview in November with Rolling Stone, Mustaine explained just how his faith and keeping a positive outlook helped in dealing with the diagnosis:
“I’ve been praying for a long time, and when this whole thing went down, I prayed a lot,” he said. “I don’t force it on anybody; I never would do that. But I prayed about it, and I believe that that was the whole reason I got healed so fast. A lot of people’s asses are probably going to grow together right now that I said this, but the truth of the matter is, everybody has their own things that they believe. And I believe that taking good care of myself and being physically fit, as well as spiritually fit, got me back to this point.”
“I’m not letting the cancer get me down,” he said. “I have to thank the fans and obviously my family and God but there was no way I was going to let this take me down. …When I got it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God. I’m gonna die.’ Because I didn’t know how bad it was. I thought of the fans and how sad everybody was gonna be. And I thought, ‘I have to beat this.’ No matter what, there’s no way I’m gonna act like I can’t do this. I can do anything if I set my mind to it.”
It’s so good to see Dave looking as healthy as he says he feels. If all goes well on the European run, perhaps we’ll get lucky and see Megadeth stateside this spring.
