A man has set a new world record after playing Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd perfectly on Guitar Hero II but three times faster than the original

Carny Jared playing Guitar Hero 2 — (Image credit: Carny Jared)

Lynyrd Skynryd's classic Free Bird features one of the most iconic instrumental passages in all of rock, with a final four minutes that find guitarists Allen Collins, Ed King and Gary Rossington trading solos with wild abandon.

Well, you can consign those iconic solos to the bin. For a gamer by the name of Carny Jared has usurped the original musicians after "performing" Free Bird on console game Guitar Hero II at 300% of the original speed. That's three hundred per cent. Three times as fast. In Expert Mode. Without making any mistakes. While talking. And he performed the feat live on streaming channel Twitch, with 4000 people watching along, most of them surely in awe.

"Let's f***ing go!", exclaims the delighted Jared as he completes the feat. "Yes! Let's f***ing go! F***ing finally! Godammit! Let's f***ing go, baby! There it is! Oh my god! F**ing finally! Godammit!"

"This is the cumulative effort of many months," Jared later wrote on YouTube, presumably after calming down. "It took 533 FC runs [FC = full combo, where players hit every note without overstrumming] to do the solo and countless hours of frustration, but finally the Free Bird world record is absolutely annihilated. Previous world record was 235%, this is 300%."

Free Bird is the final song players can unlock in ‘career mode’ on Guitar Hero II, and the game actually confronts players with multiple ‘are you sure you’re ready to play this?’ prompts before allowing them to attempt the song, which is almost nine minutes long. Or just three minutes, if you're Carny Jared.

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.