Watch: Kerry King Messes Up Slayer Song Four Times in a Row
Given how second nature playing the same songs over and over again must become, I’m surprised famous metal musicians don’t fuck up their live parts more often. Mind wanders, you’re kinda on autopilot… whoops, wait, where am I in the song, what comes next again?
So we can certainly forgive Kerry King for boofing the intro to “When the Stillness Comes” at Madison Square Garden on November 9. But what happened next is certainly out of the ordinary: King held up a single finger in the air as if to signal to the audience, “one minute, I got it!” before re-starting the song. And then he boofed it again. And again. And again, in total making four attempts before giving up, disappearing from the stage for a moment, and then coming back to skip the intro segment entirely, instead starting when the whole band comes in on the heavy part. The audience was having a hoot with it all, laughing along with Kerry moreso than at him, and Kerry for his part was certainly a good sport about it.
King got a case of what baseball players refer to as “the yips,” when you make one innocent mistake then start over-thinking it, and before long you’re trapped inside your head in an endless cycle of self-imposed pressure and fuck-ups. Chuck Knoblauch and Mackey Sasser come to mind.
King has an alibi of sorts, though; he was sporting his brand new, $8,666 signature Dean guitar for this song. We aren’t certain if this was the very first time he performed with the instrument, but using a guitar that sits differently on your body and has a different configuration than you’re used to is the kind of thing that can easily trigger a fault.
Watch below, starting at around the 15:00 mark. Remaining dates of Slayer’s final tour ever:
Nov. 20 – Broadmore Arena, Colorado Springs, CO [TICKETS]
Nov. 22 – Rimrock Arena, Billings, MT [TICKETS]
Nov. 24 – Spokane Arena, Spokane, WA [TICKETS]
Nov. 26 – Oracle Arena, Oakland, CA [TICKETS]
Nov. 27 – MGM Arena, Las Vegas, NV [TICKETS]
Nov. 29 – The Forum, Los Angeles, CA [TICKETS]
Nov. 30 – The Forum, Los Angeles, CA [TICKETS]
[via Ultimate Guitar]
