Tuesday 28 March 2017

Music Marathon

I'm back from my vacation, but before I show any pictures, let me tell you about an important event going on in my small town.

There's an attempt going on upstairs at the local pub to break the record for the Longest Concert by Multiple Artists. The live music concert started on Friday 17th March and is currently still going strong, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, aiming for 16 days finishing on 1 April, or perhaps longer, if the stamina (and the coffee) holds out.
Audience members are charged $5.00 and the money goes to a different charity each day. Today it goes to the Canadian Mental Health Association.

The current record is held by an Irish Pub in Las Vegas since October 2014. The Las Vegas concert lasted 372 hours and 10 minutes, beating the previous record of 360 hours. We can beat that!

There's a lot of rules and regulations to comply with the Guinness records people. No more than 5 minutes between acts, and only 30 seconds between songs, and no song shorter than 2 minutes. No time to chat to the audience between songs or tune the guitar! And if the guitar string breaks or some other disaster occurs, no stopping.... keep going.
The same song can't be performed more than once every 4 hours, and there has to be minimum 10 audience members at all times, even at 3:00am, and they all have to be awake!
Official timekeepers have to record the start and finish times of each song.

This crazy event is featuring over 400 bands and solo performers over the 16 days, and has over 100 volunteers making sure everything runs smoothly. The music ranges from classical to opera to heavy metal and everything in between. I was there to watch my friends perform this afternoon, and then stayed for the next couple of gigs. Great music. Great fun.
The Albert Street Four - folk rock

Mark Thackway and Garth Dynes - R&B and blues 

J. Paul Adams - piano and pop songs.... and some funny songs too.
Update March 29: I'll be back at the concert today as my friend's daughter is singing at 1:00pm. Live streaming video of the concert at https://epidemicmusicgroup.ca/#

Update March 30: To date more than $50,000 has been raised for charities from this concert. The concert will go on until Tuesday April 4 to try and beat a record set last week by a concert in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Update 6pm: $60,000 raised now!

15 comments:

  1. Wow. That is quite an event and would require a LOT of organising. Love that the proceeds are going to charity. Good luck to all the participants. And thank you.

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  2. Oh wow! This is an amazing endeavour Shammi, love the fact the money raised is going to various charities. Glad to see you safely home, looking forward to hearing about your travels.

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  3. What a great event going on! Every and each music group as well as audience must be proud of being a part of it. Hope it will be recorded on Guinness.

    Yoko

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  4. I've not heard of this event but it sounds like fun, if a bit exhausting. Love your photos and I hope all goes well with the performance of your friend's daughter!

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  5. What a great community effort! Great to participate I bet!

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  6. This is a fantastic party and you can have a great time. I also like her charitable goal. Regards .

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  7. That is really awesome. So many ongoing rules and details to take care of. Good luck to all involved!

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  8. What a wonderful charity event organized by the community. Those performers are admirable. Happy weekend to you!

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  9. What a great idea. And what a lot of hard work to organise. I hope it is a resounding success on all fronts.
    Ms Soup

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  10. Ha! Epedemic. What a good name. :-)

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  11. Our local village did a 24 hour music marathon this weekend - what lightweights they are!

    Well done to them on the $$$$ raised

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  12. Wow! Congratulations to your local artists for breaking the world record!! Yay Stouffville!!

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  13. Sounds a wonderful marathon! I would love to be there!

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