More than 1,680 guitar players turned out to rock on Sunday in Kansas City - and set a new world record in the process.
Their mass-riffing rendition of Deep Purple's guitar shop classic Smoke On The Water was a Kansas City radio station's organised attempt to break a Guinness world record for the most people playing the same song simultaneously .
The previous record had been 1,323 people playing the same song in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1994 and this time rockaholic six-stringers came from countries as far away as Germany to smash it.
"It was cool to see little kids playing, people who had been playing for their whole lives, like older people, and then I'm sure there were people like me who just picked up the song a couple days before," said Autumn McPherson, of Winfield, a senior at the University of Kansas.
Picked up the song a couple of days before?! That's guitar heresy!
Preliminary numbers show 1,683 people played the titanic riff on Sunday at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.
"I thought it was going to be kind of cheesy," said Hannah Koch, of Prairie Village, who came clad in an elf costume - presumedly in tribute to Ritchie Blackmore. "But after I got here, I got caught up in the excitement of it."
Source: The Associated Press
Read more at CNN.com.
Riff power! A new guitar playing world record is set
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