Metallica Clears Up ‘Girl Kicking’ Incident

In a story that has been reported anywhere from ‘Metallica kicks girl into audience’ to ‘Kirk Kicks a kid during show’ and all with viral video to support… Metallica steps in to clear the air.

Just wrapping up their massive 2 year tour supporting their 2008 release Death Magnetic, Metallica has been, by all accounts, thrilling the masses. Performing in-the-round with coffins as lights, multi-colored pyro flames and a plethora of “old school” Metalli-tunes, they have been giving the fans what they want. During the encore of the show, Metallica have been turning on the house lights and playing one of their many popular cover songs. In the end, they release dozens of black beach balls over the stage and audience. The ones that land on stage are summarily kicked into the crowd for souvenir purposes. Enter the problem:

In the wacky world of rock'n'roll, sometimes stuff happens which looks even weirder than it really is! And with context being vital in these situations, we just wanted to address something which happened on the tour the other night regarding a large beachball, a band member's foot and a little girl. Some of you will have seen on YouTube (or read in some reports) that Kirk knocked a small child offstage by kicking a beachball at her. That little lady is the daughter of the stage manager and dressing coordinator, who are fortunate to travel as a family on this tour. She was thoroughly enjoying watching the beachballs drop from the rafters, Kirk was thoroughly enjoying kicking the beachballs off the stage and back into the crowd as has been done every night on the tour, and neither of them saw the other. The poor wee one happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wasn't hurt. She didn't go "flying several feet into the audience." And Kirk and she remain good buddies. It's very cool that everyone showed concern and support though, so we just wanted to say "it's all good" and thanks for asking.