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Friday March 29, 2024

Fact-check: Video of Metallica performing Indonesia's national anthem?

A video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in multiple Facebook, YouTube and Twitter posts which purport to show American heavy metal band Metallica performing the Indonesian national anthem. The claim is false.

By AFP
September 17, 2019

A video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in multiple Facebook, YouTube and Twitter posts which purport to show American heavy metal band Metallica performing the Indonesian national anthem. The claim is false; the video has been manipulated from a clip in which they performed the American national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, in San Francisco.

The video was published in this Facebook post on August 16, 2019.

The two-minute, 22-second clip shows Metallica’s guitarists James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett playing their instruments in a stadium.

The post's caption states: “Metallica~Indonesia Raya”.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:

Indonesia Raya (“The Great Indonesia” in English) is the Indonesian national anthem. The song can be heard here.

Indonesia’s Independence Day is celebrated on August 17 every year.

A guitar-solo version of Indonesia Raya can be heard at the 14 second mark in the misleading video.

The same video was viewed more than 481,000 times and shared 15,000 times in this Facebook post with a similar claim before it was removed.

The misleading clip was also shared here and here on Twitter, and here on YouTube with a similar claim.

The claim is false. The video has been manipulated from original footage that shows Hammett and Hetfield playing The Star-Spangled Banner, the US national anthem, in a San Francisco stadium.

A reverse image search on Yandex and subsequent keyword searches on Google found this video published on the official YouTube account of Metallica on April 26, 2019. The video is embedded below.

Metallica: The Star-Spangled Banner (San Francisco, CA - April 26, 2019).

The video's title states: “Metallica: The Star-Spangled Banner (San Francisco, CA - April 26, 2019).”

The video's caption states: “James & Kirk perform The Star-Spangled Banner during the 7th Annual Metallica Night with the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park in San Francisco, CA on April 26, 2019.”

Below is a side-by-side comparison between the misleading video (L) and the video on Metallica’s official YouTube channel (R):

At the one second mark in the genuine Metallica video (and at the 19 second mark of the misleading video), a host can be heard saying: “Performing the Star-Spangled Banner from Metallica. Please welcome James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett.”

In the genuine clip, the two musicians went on to perform The Star-Spangled Banner.

Both men are wearing orange jerseys manufactured by the Giants, a Major League Baseball (MLB) team based in San Francisco. The jerseys are sold on the MLB website

The MLB website shows that the Giants were hosting the New York Yankees at Oracle Park on April 26, 2019.

Metallica also published the video on their official Twitter account here on April 27, 2019.

Rolling Stone magazine also reported here the event was held on April 26, 2019.

AFP found that the music used in the misleading video is identical to this guitar cover of the Indonesian national anthem published on YouTube by a musician named Heman Garde on August 13, 2015.