Free Bird

Free Bird
(Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)
As made famous by	Lynyrd Skynyrd
Year	1973
Appears in	Guitar Hero II Guitar Hero: Smash Hits Guitar Hero 5 (DLC)'
Tier/DLC	GH2: 8 GH:SH: 8 GH5: DLC
★★★★ (Expert)	243,652 (expert)
★★★★★ (Expert)	341,113 (expert)

"Free Bird" is a song by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, off of their (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) album. It is the final encore of Guitar Hero II, and is noted for being over nine minutes long, and is one of the hardest songs in the game (behind Misirlou, Hangar 18, and Trogdor).

Appears In

Guitar Hero II (Tier 8)

This song appears as a Cover.

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (Tier 8)

This song appears as a Master Track.

Guitar Hero 5 (downloadable content)

This song appears as a Master Track.

Walkthrough

Before you play the song in Guitar Hero II, the game tells you that it's the ultimate skill of a guitar hero, and tries to talk you out of playing it.

"Free Bird" is the longest song in Guitar Hero II (and one of the longest in the entire series, second only to "Stranglehold", and technically From the Blue/Point of No Return/TTRTS, which is a compilation of three songs by An Endless Sporadic), which means a lot of stamina will be required to pass it. The first few minutes of the song are slow and have very spaced out hammer-ons which can be tricky if a player is used to Guitar Hero III hammer-ons. The song gets much more difficult at the midway point. A long blue sustain note signals the beginning of the solos. At this point, you should have star power ready. A long chain of extremely fast RYBYR zigs are next. After that, another set of the same zigs are ahead, but these are slower and more manageable. Two of the most difficult solos are solos I and J, which mainly consists of descending quads and triplets. Star Power will almost definitely be needed for a sightreader on this part. The outro contains a set of triplets that could end the song prematurely.

The Guitar Hero: Smash Hits version is considered by many to be even harder than its Guitar Hero II counterpart. The reason for this is because the Smash Hits version features the new mechanics introduced in Guitar Hero World Tour, namely extended sustains. However, the sections before the solos are generally easier, since they consist almost entirely of slider notes (except for the extended sustained notes at the very beginning).

A good general rule is to save any star power you get until you absolutely need it.

Song Stats

Difficulty	Total Notes	Base Score	4-Star	5-Star
Easy	957	61,912	123,824	173,354
Medium	1,242	86,498	172,996	242,195
Hard	1,684	Approx. 116,000	232,582	317,542 (GH II) Approx. 323,000 (Smash Hits)
Expert	1,982	121,826	243,652	341,113

• Stats courtesy of Score Hero
• All stats are for 360 version of Guitar Hero II.

Trivia

• This song is referenced in the first Guitar Hero game in one of the loading screens; "They don't really want you to play Free Bird, they're just heckling you!"
• Despite saying it's the hardest song in Guitar Hero II, when it appears as Downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5  and Guitar Hero Smash Hits, it has an 80% while Hangar 18 (which also appears in both Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero 5 DLC) has a 90%.
• This song is probably the third hardest song when using a DualShock controller.
• In the Career Mode, if Free Bird is played several times, one of three special loading screens for the song will show:

"Man, you must really like Free Bird."

"FINE. They AREN'T just heckling you this time. SIGH."

"You're looking for 'gtr solo i' in the practice mode."This is a rare time in Guitar Hero where almost every letter of the alphabet is used (or gtr solo (input letter here)). This can be seen on practice mode and the song stats at the end of the song with the stats showing a long list of gtr solos ending with "S".

• This is the longest song to play in Guitar Hero II, clocking at a whopping 9 minutes and 18 seconds, and was surpassed by the "Mercyful Fate" medley arranged by Metallica in Guitar Hero: Metallica at 11 minutes 13 seconds, and "Do You Feel Like We Do?" performed live by Peter Frampton in Guitar Hero 5 at 15 minutes 5 seconds.

Video

Freebird 100% FC Guitar Hero 2 Expert

Expert Guitar Full Combo in Guitar Hero II.

GH Smash Hits - Free Bird Expert Guitar 100% FC HD

Expert Guitar Full Combo in Guitar Hero: Smash Hits.