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Another world record for Smoke on the Water
On Saturday June 23, a new guitar world record was set in Stuttgart: 1,803 guitarists (preliminary number) played “Smoke on the Water” at the same time at the same place. Previous record of 1,683 guitarists was set only three weeks ago in Kansas City.
Jon Lord could not make it to the event and sent his best wishes via email. However, rather unexpectedly Ian Gillan called in on the phone with a welcoming speech to the participants and his words were relayed live from the stage.
The event was big and besides the record attempt included an extended festival program around it. Micky Moody played with his new band. His set lasted for about half an hour and consisted of his own material, no big Whitesnake hits (although they were loudly requested from the audience).
There’s already press coverage online in Spiegel (in German). More details will be published soon at www.gitarrenweltrekord.de and Caramba!.
Thanks to Helge Mayschak for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
While I congratulate Stuttgart for their accomplishment (many of my relatives live in nearby Holzgerlingen and Nagold), I am astonisthed that the record was broken by only 120 guitarists.
Given the hype, a major PR campaign, corporate sponsorship by people such as Marshall amps (with free mini practise amps), guest celebrities like Michael Schenker, and the fact that DP is much more popular in Europe than in the US, I would have thought it would be a blowout!
Here in KC, it was primarily a grass roots effort sponsored by a local radio station and word-of-mouth.
Our Kansas record says lot for the American DP fans and certainly warrants some recognition by both the band and the rest of the world, as the KC record went largely ignored.
I predicted Stuttgart would beat the record by at least a thousand! Just 120? Amazing…
Congratulations again to Stuttgart. It all goes to show that DP fans are a unique lot and the best rock fans in the world!
It won’t be long before the record will be broken again! Are you listening, Japan?
June 25th, 2007 at 02:51Maybe in Sweeden or Norway they could do well to, but here in Denmark we might get 100, but only if the weather is nice. When it comes to music we are lightyears behind, due to radio stations and newspapers totaly lack of interest in musich which last more then 2 days.
June 25th, 2007 at 22:20Thanks for your congratulations, T.
June 27th, 2007 at 07:12To tell the truth: I never expected that we could beat KC. Be aware, Stuttgart is not KC (I know that city, as one of the headquarters of my company is located there), and Germany is not the US. Everything is much smaller here, and less people live here. Sponsorship was great, but PR could have been much more. All was set up and organiszed by a handful of volunteers, no pros.
And regarding Michael Schenker: he was not there, his participation was just a few seconds of greetings done during an interview at a music fair. And he is much nore popular in the US than in Germany…
Hopefully our record is not broken until September. If not, we will be written into the Guiness Book of Records.
[…] Originalmente publicado por aggustin No, entiendo, yo la conozco, pero no creo que pueda considerarse como: "una que sepamos todos"… Que se yo, asi lo veo yo al menos. SMOKE ON THE WATER 3 de junio 2007 se ha batido un nuevo record de gente tocando el famoso tema de Deep Purple. M
September 1st, 2008 at 02:29