20 Crazy Music Stunts That Broke World Records
From the Birdsville Big Bash's record-breaking tribute to Tina Turner to FANGZ's Joshua Cottreau eating the most hard-boiled eggs in one sitting, here are some of the wildest music stunts to enter the Guinness Book of World Records.
Birdsville Big Bash, The Seekers, FANGZ, Lady Gaga (Credit: Matt Williams, Darren James Photography, YouTube, Supplied)
On May 1 this year, 8,122 musicians gathered with their stringed instruments at Market Square in the Polish town of Wroclaw and set a Guinness World Record for playing Hey Joe simultaneously and making up the largest guitar ensemble.
Among them were Adelaide expatriate Orianthi (Richie Sambora, Prince, Michael Jackson) and one-time Bob Marley guitarist Al Anderson.
The Wroclaw event is for guitars, but those toting ukuleles, mandolins and bass guitars are also welcome. The annual gathering is called Thanks Jimi.
It was started in 2003 by local musician and guitar teacher Leszek Cichoński. He got the idea six years before during a blues workshop, when he was playing Hey Joe with 17 students. It took a few years, but the first record attempt drew 588.
Cichoński’s idea was to beat the record each year. By 2023, it was up to 7,967. Among those who’ve joined are Steve Vai, Steve Morse, Leon Hendrix (Jimi’s brother), Jennifer Batten, who worked with Michael Jackson, and Bruce Kulick.
Meantime, let’s look at some events endorsed by The Guinness Book of World Records.
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LONGEST MARATHON PLAYING DRUMS
Carlos Santos from Portugal plonked himself behind his kit on November 9, 2014, and whacked the hell out of it for over 132 hours (7,978 minutes).
He finished on his son’s 4th birthday. That was significant because the event was to “raise awareness and support for positive parenthood and against parental alienation,” said Santos.
“Not being able to communicate with my son made this World Record possible. No father should have to go through this.
“Above all, no son or daughter should be deprived of communicating with both parents equally. Say no to parental alienation!”
He had to accompany recognisable songs, with no more than 30 seconds between each track and limited rest breaks. The previous record holder was Kunto Hartono from Indonesia (72 hours), who took over from Russ Prager from Sacramento, California (58 hours).
WORLD’S COLDEST GIG
Charlie Simpson, ex-singer with British band Busted, was officially the coolest rock star in the world when he played an outdoor concert in Russian Siberia at minus 30C.
In November 2012, the 27-year-old and his support team of three journeyed for four days to the village of Oymyakon, known as the 'Pole of Cold', for the Jagermeister Ice Cold Gig.
Simpson chattered through his teeth: “It was unbearably cold, and playing guitar with gloves on wasn’t an option. We had to pack hand warmers into my sleeves before the performance to keep my blood warm and stop my fingers from getting frostbite.”
Few tourists can bear the cold for over 5 minutes. But Simpson had to be out there for 15 minutes, playing an acoustic set of tracks from his top ten album, Young Pilgrim. He could only take up to 30-second breaks between songs.
He related, “The town has no TV or radio, so they've had little to no contact with rock music before. This was definitely a world first in many respects!"
LARGEST PLAYABLE ELECTRIC GUITAR IN THE WORLD
In May 2001, Scott Rippetoe from Houston, Texas, set this record by building a 43-foot, 7.5-inch tall, 16-foot 5.5-inch wide guitar that weighs 2,000 pounds. The guitar was modelled after a 1967 Gibson Flying V. His team included Conroe Independent School District Academy of Science and Technology students.
Rippetoe was no mine-is-bigger axeman. He was an aerospace engineering graduate who taught physics and advanced maths at a high school.
After the guitar award, he turned to robotics. An entry into a competition was a robot that climbed a pyramid and threw as many Frisbee disks into a goal as possible, within 2:15 minutes.
BIGGEST CONCERT ATTENDANCE IN AUSTRALIA
When folk-rock band The Seekers returned to Melbourne in 1967 after a successful stint in London, the idea was a 10-minute welcome show at the Myer Music Bowl on March 12.
Judith Durham later recollected to this writer, “The Bowl only held 15,000 to 20,000. By 11 am, there were 100,000. People came in the early morning and sat under the hot sun. They had to close roads, and there were helicopters above us. We only rehearsed five songs, and when we ran out, the audience wanted more.”
Having 200,000 people was equal to ten per cent of Melbourne’s population at the time.
Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs drew a similar size crowd to the Bowl in 1972, but no one thought to alert the Guinness people.
LOUDEST DRUMMER
Newcastle-based Screaming Jets and Dirty Skanks drummer Col Hatchman hit a peak reading of 137.2 dBs (A-weighted) while playing Jimi Hendrix’s Stone Free.
It was during a charity gig with Dirty Skanks at the Northern Star Hotel in Hamilton, NSW, on August 4, 2006.
The same deafening sound would come from standing 100 feet (30.5 m) from a jet plane during take-off.
LONGEST DJ RELAY SET
This was achieved in Sydney on October 21, 2016. It involved 147 steel-wheelers, including Swindail, Kinder, and Polographia, at 107 Projects in Redfern and ran for eight hours. The previous record was in Singapore with 133 DJs.
MOST HARD-BOILED EGGS EATEN IN ONE SITTING
Not quite a music event, of course, but it makes the list because the global accolade went to Joshua Cottreau, singer with Aussie punk band FANGZ. He scoffed 143 in three minutes. Footage of the feat made its way into the video for their Let’s Talk track.
“After many attempts at releasing music to leave our mark on the world, we had the idea to try and cement our legacy in The Guinness Book of World Records. We had to choose a record, and it took us months to find the correct one," he said in a statement.
Inspiration came while watching the 1967 prison drama Cool Hand Luke on TV, in which the character played by Paul Newman attempted 50 hard-boiled eggs in one go. The band enlisted Sydney Olympics aerial ballet participant Nikki Webster and famed Bali traveller Schapelle Corby on social media.
SHORTEST MUSIC CONCERT EVER
In May 2012, Jack White of The White Stripes grumbled to Uncut magazine that the Guinness people were “elitist” because they kept rejecting his applications for the shortest music concert ever.
It had taken place in 2007 at a show in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, when he lumbered up on stage and played a single note.
However, Guinness protested they had, in fact, certified it a year later. But they had since stopped listing for Shortest Concert, Shortest Song and Shortest Performance because people were getting silly trying to copycat it. There were attempts where a band trooped on stage…and then headed off, claiming it was a “concert”.
The official certification before the ban stands with The Who in 2007 in Tampa, Florida, before 9,000 fans. It started and ended in 13 seconds, when singer Roger Daltrey realised his throat issues were more severe than he had first thought.
MOST PIANO KEYS HIT IN ONE MINUTE
The most piano key hits in one minute is 1,030 and was achieved by Japanese teenager Keita Hattori on December 20, 2024. After months of intense training, he used a new strategy.
He sat at the far right of the piano and, using his index finger, rapidly pressed the highest C key until the minute was up—a tactic that allowed him to break the previous record … set by himself twice in 2023, registering 892 and 958 presses.
He was also lauded for his speed on drums, holding several world records, including 1,334 single stroke roll drumbeats in one minute, 687 drumbeats in 30 seconds, and 3,706 drumbeats in three minutes.
MOST MEMES EVER USED IN A MUSIC VIDEO
Weezer’s 2009 video for Pork And Beans had 55 different memes. This included Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 making an idiotic speech about “children and the Iraq”, and a Leave Britney Alone plea from video blogger Chris Crocker after her set at the 2007 MTV Awards (the video received 4 million views in two days, and now 20 million).
There was also a scientific performance duo, Eepybird, popularised a chemical reaction by mixing Diet Coke and mint-flavoured Mentos in large fountain formations choreographed to music, a lightsaber battle in a fan-made Star Wars film, and excerpts of one Matt McAllister's winning entry of Most T-Shirts Worn At One Time with 155 items.
MOST VALUABLE GUITAR
The most valuable guitar set in 2015 was made by Hong Kong jeweller Aaron Shum and worth US$2 million (AU$3 million in current rate). Called Eden Of Coronet, the Gibson was adorned with 11,441 pieces of diamonds, 401.15 carats, and 18,000 white gold — which is 57.67 ounces.
It was designed by musician Mark Lui and featured motifs of Coronet flora and a variety of nature-inspired themes. It employed 62 artisans, three product development specialists, and two project managers, over 700 person-days.
FIRST GIG ON A FLOATING ICEBERG
On October 15, 2014, UK industrial metal band The Defiled played for 30 minutes on top of a floating iceberg in the Greenland Sea, braving sub-zero temperatures and fast-flowing ice.
“This has to be one of the most insane gigs we’ve ever played!” said singer Stitch D. “You see these things on TV documentaries, but it’s not until you get to see them in real life that you realise just how big and amazing icebergs are.”
As part of the Jägermeister Ice Cold Gig competition, the band flew to Iceland, then to Greenland, to the town of Kulusuk, then journeyed by land and sea to their base on the neighbouring island of Tasiilaq.
Locals helped haul their gear onto the floating ice and then watched the show from fishing boats. Afterwards, The Defiled donated a drum kit and guitar amp to Kulusuk's community hall, which had been destroyed by a storm.
WORLD’S BIGGEST ORCHESTRA
This quest was held in Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium when trumpeter James Morrison successfully assembled 7,224 musicians in July 2013 in the World's Biggest Orchestra, smashing the previous record of 6,452 set by the Vancouver Symphony in 2000.
Morrison was the Artistic Director of the Queensland Music Festival that year, and the gathering of the orchestra was the firing gun that started the event.
Toting strings, brass, woodwind and percussion instruments, professionals were joined by musos from school and community orchestras, concert and brass bands. Morrison conducted them through Waltzing Matilda, Beethoven's Ode For Joy and the finale, Queen's We Will Rock You.
The Guinness Book of World Records’ listing for the largest orchestra playing on bamboo instruments was formed by 3011 people and achieved by Benny J. Mamoto in Tondano Maesa Stadium, Tondano, Indonesia.
LARGEST NUTBUSH DANCE
The largest nutbush line dance to Tina Turner's 1973 toe-tapper Nutbush City Limits drew 1,719 participants at the Birdsville Big Red Bash in remote Queensland in July 2018.
"It was very dusty (being in the desert) and a cool morning, but the sun was shining. The attempt was successful and was wonderful to see!" Guinness adjudicator Pete Fairbairn said.
The danceathon raised $10,000 for the Royal Flying Doctors' Service.
In 2023, the record was beaten by the Mundi Mundi Bash, which gathered 6,594 dancers and smashed previous world records. The 2023 event raised over $170,000 for the RFDS.
FIRST BAND TO DESTROY INSTRUMENTS ON STAGE
This one was certified back in 1964 by The Who at the Railway Tavern in Harrow, London. Pete Townshend accidentally broke his guitar neck by hitting the low ceiling. To save face, he smashed the whole thing to bits.
Naturally, they were expected to do this at every show after. The problem was that The Who were, at the time, penniless. So they sneaked in a second-hand axe to smash up at the end of the show. After the curtain went down, roadies would scamper around to find the broken pieces and glue them again for the next show!
FIRST FEMALE ARTIST TO ACHIEVE THREE 10-MILLION SELLING SINGLES
It was Lady Gaga, with Just Dance (2008), Poker Face (2008) and Bad Romance (2009). Katy Perry, Rihanna and Adele went on to have their own hat trick of 10 million sellers. But Gaga had a fourth one – Shallow (2018), a A Star Is Born duet with Bradley Cooper – which left them in the dust.
LONGEST MARATHON CLUB DJ-ING
Italian DJ Faber Moreira, 59, began his set at a club in the town of Saluzzo on May 15, 2024. Ten days and four hours (precisely 244 hours and two minutes) later, he was done, breaking the 10-year record set in Dublin by Polish DJ Norberto Loco with 200 hours.
During the marathon, Faber had a bed onstage. The rules allowed five minutes of rest per hour of activity, totalling two hours per day. He limited himself to 15-minute naps, which were “essential to avoid entering the REM phase, where the brain falls asleep completely”.
When the judges noticed his eyes drooping, they’d ring a warning bell. “I hated that sound!”
LARGEST DRUM ENSEMBLE
On June 29, 2007, at the Dragon Jamboree concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China, 10,045 drummers came together to set a record for the largest drum ensemble.
BIGGEST AIR GUITAR GATHERING
On March 1, 2020, 3,722 AC/DC fans lined up as part of Perth Festival and strummed along to Highway To Hell. The crowd was urged on by national and state air guitar champions Jinja Assassin, Tommy AirManuel and Billy Damage.
The former record was in 2011 in Highland, California, when 2,377 air-jerked to Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train.
LOUDEST BAND IN THE WORLD
The Guinness Book of World Records no longer celebrates The Loudest Band in the World for fear of promoting hearing loss.
The first entry was in 1968 by the San Francisco power trio Blue Cheer, who pioneered the idea of extreme loudness and Marshall amp stacks.
Early shows had front rows fleeing for their lives (and hearing), and the band had to record their second album Outsideinside outside on a pier.
The Guinness people didn’t measure the loudness of the Blue Cheer shows.
But they began with the second entry, Deep Purple at London’s 3,000-seat Rainbow Theatre in 1972. It measured at 117 decibels. So loud that three crowd members fell unconscious.
The Who hit 126 dB on May 31, 1976, at the Charlton Athletic Football Club (aka “The Valley”) in England. Mind you, the volume was measured 32 metres (105 feet) from the speakers.
Motörhead’s 1984 appearance at the Cleveland Variety Theatre in Ohio was said to measure at an earwax-melting 130 dB. The show was cut short because vibrations led to ceiling plaster raining down on the crowd. The venue was shut down two years later due to structural concerns.
Led Zeppelin and AC/DC concerts were also set to 130 dB.
Global Sound Group's James Dyble research indicates that the Beatles' 1965 Shea Stadium concert reached 131.35 dB. The audience's screaming was so loud that it drowned out the music!
One of the loudest concerts by an Australian band was in 1972 by Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs at the first Sunbury festival. Determined to make a splash, Thorpe gathered every amp in Victoria.
During his set, the Diggers Rest pub, 10 miles away, complained about the noise and how it rattled its glasses and windows. A stage production crew member had to be taken to the hospital due to the shrill ringing in his ears.
In 1984, Manover made the entry officially. In 1994, they applied again for the title after turning up to 129.5 dB in Hanover, Germany. But by then, Guinness had discarded the category saying it glorified unhealthy noise levels.
The 2000 edition officially listed Iron Maiden – not as the loudest band but having the biggest PA system when they headlined Monsters Of Rock at Castle Donington. It was on August 20, 1988, to 107,000 black T-shirted rock-hardies.
The PA, consisting of 24 TMS-3 boxes for the main house system and 360 Turbosound cabinets, peaked at 124 decibels. It was driven by audio power of over 500 kW. Since the Guinness entry, the PA grew to include 100 TMS-3s and 24 TSW-124 subwoofers.
According to a report in ProSound Web, for Donington, Maiden’s production team brought in extra cabinets and amplifier racks from France and Holland. The set-up needed 24 roadies. In a London warehouse, “a section of the planned array was evaluated to simulate the intended coverage two months beforehand.”
It took five days to set up, said the report. Monday was spent erecting the main loudspeaker array. On Tuesday, the consoles, stage monitoring and the single delay tower array went up.
Wednesday was “tech day” — the system was fired up, hums were exorcised, the polarity of more than 1,700 individual components was checked, and the cabinet array in the PA wings’ upper tier was adjusted.”
Thursday and Friday were for sound checking for Maiden and the support bands.
But tragedy overtook triumph. Because of a crowd crush, two fans died during the set by the then-up-and-coming Guns N’ Roses. The deaths were kept a secret from Iron Maiden until after their headliner set.
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