After years away from the stage, Frank Marino is making his grand return to the stage on August 7 for a rare appearance in Montreal’s Little Italy.
The performance marks Marino’s first live performance in years, after he announced his retirement from touring in 2021 and, subsequently, injured his hand while building pedals in 2024.
After Marino made the jump from player to pedal maker in an attempt to continue his career in music after health issues prevented him from touring, he suffered a hand injury that left him unable to play as he once had.
“I'm making all these pedals by hand, and basically, by doing the grinding, pressing, and everything that I was doing by holding stuff in my left hand, I damaged a nerve in the index finger of my left hand,” Marino said in an interview with Guitar World.
“I've been playing nonstop for 55 years,” he continued, “so suddenly, when I play my guitar, I've got to be careful about how I do it because it hurts.”
“That was on top of all the other things that were happening to me, not being able to use my left hand or my index finger on my left hand... it made it a lot harder,” he told CTV News Canada last year.
“So basically, I went to all the different doctors and hand specialists and all of that stuff, and nothing worked. They tried all these magnets, and it cost me a lot of money, and it was all really for nothing. And so, I just decided to wait and tried playing slowly and gradually. It’s all over time. My finger came back.”
A dose of patience, as well as therapy and cortisone, has enabled him to play again, starting with a private jam in Montreal with local musicians back in October.
“I’d say it’s about 80 to 90 percent back. But, you know, I can play anything that I could play before, but it hurts. So I have to play through the pain just like a hockey player,” he said.
Now, Marino is taking things a step further while paying homage to his city and mesmerizing audiences with a free 90-minute concert as part of ItalfestMTL 2026 – Montreal’s Italian-flavored festival, presented by the Caisse Populaire Desjardins Canadienne Italienne.
For more information about Marino’s concert, visit the official ItalfestMTL 2026 website.
In an exclusive Guitar World interview in 2015, Marino spoke about comparisons to Jimi Hendrix, Mahogany Rush's heyday, and his penchant for pedals – including carrying around a six-foot-by-three-foot, two-tier pedalboard with 22 stompboxes on it in the late '70s.
