Ross The Boss Friedman, who founded Manowar with Joey DeMaio and The Dictators before that, gets a tribute concert on Saturday 9 January at The Meadows in Brooklyn.
Members of his own band, of The Dictators and of The Spinatras are playing it. His son Jesse put out the invitation himself, and it is the least formal announcement of a tribute show you will read this year. "Everyone who knew my Dad, Ross The Boss, needs to be at this show," he wrote. "If you know me, you knew him." All ages, anyone under sixteen with a guardian.
Marc Lopes, who sang in the Ross The Boss band, says this is the only one happening in the United States and that more are being planned across the world through 2027.
Friedman died in March at seventy two, a little over a month after telling people he had ALS. He went public with the diagnosis on 9 February and said it had followed some very minor strokes and weakness in his hands and legs. For a guitarist, that order of events is its own kind of cruelty, and it moved fast.