Ok so I've been working on this song for a while now and as I'm sure most people who've tried it themselves know the trick here is pretty much in getting past the opening sequence of notes.  So I'm curious what strategies people have employed to get past it?

The best luck I've had so far is in fingering the notes with a single hand keeping my other hand on the strumming bar to  restart if I screw up.  The only problem is that I cannot consistantly hit those damn orange notes so it happens quite a bit =P 

Is there are good way of doing this that anyone has found?  I'm prety sure its just something you have to get good at the old fashion way but if there is a trick to this someone let me know (other than that they are hammer-ons....gimme a little credit =P).

Right now I am consistantly getting 71-72% in practice mode (for the whole song) but I think I need to get into the low 80s at least to have a shot at beating it legit....that and of course being able to get past the opening =P

Anyone tackled this beast?  Any pointers?   

Still only on Hard mode so I can't really help ya.

I'm about where you are, 73% for the whole song in practice mode.  Hell, I can only 4-star it on Hard with 380,000 points.

The opening has me pretty well stuck.  I can almost do it consistently in practice mode on the "slow" setting (just below normal speed).  I think the trick is going to be to get the fingering down consistently on slow, so that you can do it with 100% over and over again, and then finally try it on full speed.

I've seen what some people do is turn their hand around, and hold down the green fret button with their pinky, freeing up their "good" fingers to tap the higher notes.  I can't do this, it just doesn't work.  I'm sure with practice, I would eventually figure it out, but I feel like I'm better off practicing the normal way.  Still, maybe you're less retarded with backwards fingering than I am.  :) 

 Perhaps I can help you with a bit of advice then.  If you get stuck on set 7/8 just move on to expert.  Most  of the songs in sets 7 & 8 are way harder than anything else at that difficulty and in a lot of cases harder than songs on higher difficulties.  If you move past them you should be able to continue progressing and building up your skill...then once you get to 7/8 in the next difficulty level go back and try them again and you should have a much easier time with it.

Basically it allows you to climb the difficulty on a slope a little less steep.  For whatever reason 7/8 on hard are more difficult than 1-6 on expert...at least imo.

somebody put a tutorial up on youtube... though it's a cheat.

or, you can try what the 9-year old on youtube does--strum and then immediately move your right hand to play the orange note.

i don't think my hand is big enough to play the opening of this song... but i'll keep trying. my hand hurts so much every time i practice it.

i can get through the opening if i play it the way i play the piano, but that's a cheat.

EDIT: yeah, like entroper said, i can also get through it by holding down the green note with the pinkie.  but to me that's also a cheat. 

Wow thats shockingly close to where I am =P

You're getting better scores on hard than I am but I only recently started trying it in hopes it would help but I can just barely breach the 90% range on hard. 

As for the expert intro I went into practice and I too can consistantly get 90% of the notes on slow (100% on slowest) but when I switch to full speed it just falls apart...

PS - no i am equally retarded in that regard =P 

My friend can almost beat it on expert and what he does is play the frets with both of his hands and strums with his elbow whenever he screws up during the intro

I can only beat that, and Raining Blood on Hard. Everything else I can do expert, but those are monsters.

Here's where I am: http://www.guitarhero.com/accounts/220178

My "other" account (on my old Wii) has Expert mode finished, but I just haven't been able to get lucky in the Lou battle a second time around yet.

 cool.. i didn't even know something like this existed!

 i have yet to beat any of the expert battles yet... don't get to practice those songs.