All right Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany – you win this round.
On Saturday afternoon, over 1,500 Torontonians gathered in Yonge-Dundas Square in an attempt to unseat the south-western German town in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The event: The Great Canadian Tune, part of the ongoing Luminato festival. The record: largest guitar ensemble. The song: Helpless by Neil Young.
At 2 p.m. the overflow crowd signed in one at a time with festival volunteers, then played the Young hit together. In the end, a Guinness judge announced that Toronto fell just short of the world record with 1,623 guitarists strumming along. In 2007, Leinfelden-Echterdingen - a town of 37,000 residents - attracted 1,802 people to play Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.
Still, for an event originally conceived as “filler” by festival organizers, the afternoon proved a huge success.
“It seemed like a simple idea at the time,” Luminato artistic director Chris Lorway said, “but it’s blown up to be the event that everybody is talking about at this year’s festival.”
An interactive, engaging and provocative event, the Great Canadian Tune represented the core elements that continue to endear Luminato to festival-goers.
“There’s so many great artistic things going on that it’s something that pumps more life into the heart of Toronto,” Daniel McLaughlin, one guitarist, said.
Jeff Gray, who brought his four-year-old son Felix to the event, lauded the choice of Young’s Helpless as the song voted by the public to play for the record attempt.
“It’s only three chords, so even I can play it.”
Frank Wilks, a 51-year old musician, said that Helpless stands among the first songs he ever learned to play. It also opened the door for him to reconnect with his hometown after traveling the world playing the Neil Young role in the tribute band Buffalo Springfield Revisited.
“I love Toronto. It’s my home, so I want to be part of the community,” Wilks said. “That’s what it’s all about – creativity and arts and culture.”
Though it’s not known whether festival organizers will attempt to break the record in future years, one consolation for those in attendance came with the announcement that Torontonians did, however, set a new Canadian record. Take that…Saskatoon?
Laura Godfrey 5:27 pm on June 8, 2009 Permalink
Oh man, I can’t believe they didn’t break the record! That’s so sad — it looks like they were so close, too. I bet they could break it next year if they try again, now that more people will know about it and the hype will be built up.
Mike Crisolago 5:35 pm on June 8, 2009 Permalink
Leinfelden-Echterdingen is a town of 37,000, which means almost 5% of their population came out to perform. Toronto has 2.5 million people or so, and I know there are a few hundred thousand who play guitar who could be there. I think it was a matter of marketing the event. Organisers admitted it started as filler for a free Saturday with nothing planned. If it had the full ofrce of Luminato’s marketing behind it, they would have had the extra 200 people plus many more there to break the record.
Meghan Housley 7:38 pm on June 8, 2009 Permalink
Yeah, it definitely needed to be talked up more. I can vaguely remember hearing about it a while ago, but not a ton of follow up
Brandii 11:29 pm on June 8, 2009 Permalink
Good story!
Mike Crisolago 12:01 am on June 9, 2009 Permalink
I think Luminato, in general, is still somewhat of a mystery to many people in the city. It’s new (3rd year), so it’s not as established as, say, something like the Beaches Jazz Festival, and doesn’t attract the mainstream star power of the TIFF (my apologies to Randy Bachman). That said, in this particular case, a few extra ads on subways or in the papers regarding this specific event would have not only ensured its success, but that success would have raised the profile of the festival in general. After all, it’s not everyday Toronto sets a world record.
Mike Crisolago 1:28 am on June 9, 2009 Permalink
Thanks Brandii! I appreciate you checking us out! Hope you like the rest of the site!