“Believe it or not, before I made this there was not a category for world's largest Nerf gun, but there is now.”
- Mark Rober
On this day in 1996, a new musical world record was set. 2,000 guitar players, including Chet Atkins and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (Doobie Brothers) gathered in Nashville's Riverfront Park and played Heartbreak Hotel for 75 minutes. Unless it was a fundraiser for terminal tone-deafness, I can see no reason for such a thing other than to break the record previously held. That one occurred in Vancouver, Canada in 1994. There, Randy Bachman led 1,322 amateur guitarists in a performance that lasted 68 minutes. I can see no point to that one either. Maybe it was just something to do.
What other music-related records are there? Let's see:
Loudest Performance: KISS in Ottawa, Canada, 136 dB
Largest Gathering of Elvis Impersonators: 645, Las Vegas in 2010
Most Encores at a Concert: Five, The Cure in 2004
Longest Continuous Drumming Session: 150 hours and 1 minute by Allister Brown, Lisburn, UK in 2023
Best Selling Album of All Time: Thriller/Michael Jackson (1982) 70 million +
Song With the Most Recorded Covers: Yesterday/Beatles 2,220
Most Concerts in 24 Hours in Different Cities: The Flaming Lips/Eight Full Concerts
Speaking of lots of guitars, Blue Oyster Cult mentions 3,000 of them below: