{"id":678,"date":"2007-07-02T13:54:37","date_gmt":"2007-07-02T17:54:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-01-19T11:47:40","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T15:47:40","slug":"the-longest-concert-ever-as-slow-as-poss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-longest-concert-ever-as-slow-as-poss\/","title":{"rendered":"The Longest Concert Ever&#8230; As Slow As Possible!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/39RtJoTfeKE?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nDid you know that as of this March, a group in Japan was awarded as the current record holders of the World&#8217;s Longest Concert? Beating out Canada (who held it since 2002) in the <em>Guinness Book<\/em> (to my own chagrin). On Thursday night, when <a title=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/thefieryfurnaces\" href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/thefieryfurnaces\" target=\"_blank\">The Fiery Furnaces<\/a> played, the audience was put to the test for almost an hour and 45 minutes of original concert material. For an indie band, that&#8217;s <em>kiiind<\/em> of a long set &#8211; especially when you&#8217;re not expecting it.<\/p>\n<p><img title=\"Sparks; in a pensive mood. I would expect a long set from Sparks.\" src=\"http:\/\/graphikdesigns.free.fr\/halfnelson-sparks\/sparks-maels-los-angeles.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em><span style=\"font-size: x-small; color: #808080;\">Sparks; in a pensive mood. I would expect a long set from Sparks.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>With no breaks between songs when your band sounds more like a melodic <a title=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pOeejdha_AQ\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pOeejdha_AQ\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Trenchmouth<\/em><\/a> or <em>Red Red Meat<\/em> fronted by a not less interesting <strong>Patti Smith<\/strong> or <strong>PJ Harvey<\/strong>, it can test your fortitude and rock n&#8217; roll strength to stay interested &#8211; and I like to <em>think<\/em> that I&#8217;ve got a pretty good attention span. Double drummers, and lots of on stage action almost trick you into believing that the momentum and excitement could keep up with itself, but all that just falls to the background once it goes way past the hour mark &#8211; even the encore is mixed in with the regular set to &#8220;save us&#8221; from waiting for them to come back out on stage (we are told).<\/p>\n<p>Is it possible that the band may have exceeded even their own expectations in length? Is it simply a practice in showing us who&#8217;s <em><strong>The Boss<\/strong><\/em>? After seeing <strong>Yo La Tengo<\/strong>&#8216;s live show again earlier this year (not having seen them since the mid-90s), I was lamenting to a friend that I really liked most of the band&#8217;s set, but that the actual length of the show went on <strong><em>forever<\/em><\/strong>! He completely understood, having seen Yo La Tengo many times himself in recent years, what I was getting at:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Should experimentation take the live stage or go back to the garage?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Related article:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>JAPAN MAKES HISTORY WITH LONGEST CONCERT EVER by Lexi Feinberg<\/p>\n<p>What fun would a Saturday morning be without a new Guinness World Record winner?<\/p>\n<p>This time it\u2019s Japan that can take a bow: Over 900 Japanese musicians ranging from ages 6 to 89 took turns playing continuously over nine days, for a record-breaking 184-hour concert. If that\u2019s not impressive enough, they kept on going right through fatigue and a major earthquake&#8211;a 6.9 whopper, to be exact.<\/p>\n<p>According to Yahoo! Music, the program spanned a variety of music from the Beatles\u2019 classics to traditional harp tunes. The previous record was held by Canada since 2002, and that one clocked in at 182 hours. A representative from the Guinness Book certified the new champion on 10 a.m., saying, &#8220;The longest concert by multiple artists was achieved by Kuniko Teramura and friends at Toriimoto Station &#8230; from 23-31 March 2007.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To qualify for the prize, the musicians were not allowed to take breaks and could not stop playing less than two minutes into the song, says Hiroshi Mizutani, who was fondling the piano right through the earthquake. Good times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>And now, news from the Slowest Concert ever!:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.zeitgenoessische-oper.de\/Europera%205\/Photo_von_John_Cage.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em><span style=\"font-size: x-small; color: #808080;\">What a good lookin&#8217; guy!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;The John Cage Organ Project began performing the experimental U.S. composer&#8217;s piece Organ2\/ASLSP (or As SLow aS Possible) on Sept. 5, 2001 \u2014 which would have been Cage&#8217;s 89th birthday. The piece is being performed in the abandoned Buchardi church in the German city of Halberstadt, about 60 kilometres southeast of Hannover. The recital is scheduled to last until 2639.&#8221;<\/em> (<a title=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/arts\/story\/2006\/01\/05\/cage-concert-longest.html\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/arts\/story\/2006\/01\/05\/cage-concert-longest.html\" target=\"_blank\">cbc.ca, 2006<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the current timeline:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1992<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>John Cage dies in New York.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>5 September 2001<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>The 89th birthday of John Cage marks the beginning of the performance. The first organ that is build for the consequent performance of a composition and that will blow all so far known temporally dimensions and therewith also sound dimensions. It is connected with the intention of optimism, someone\u00b4s spirits and idealism which is equal to the creator of the big cathedrals.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>5 February 2003<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>the first sound<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>5 July 2004<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>the first change of tone<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>2639<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>the finale of the performance<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>I have one more question for you:<\/strong><br \/>\nWill the World <em>outlast the actual performance of As Slow As Possible?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>God only knows.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/www.john-cage.halberstadt.de\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.john-cage.halberstadt.de\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.john-cage.halberstadt.de<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that as of this March, a group in Japan was awarded as the current record holders of the World&#8217;s Longest Concert? Beating out Canada (who held it since 2002) in the Guinness Book (to my own chagrin). On Thursday night, when The Fiery Furnaces played, the audience was put to the test <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-longest-concert-ever-as-slow-as-poss\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[121,418],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}