Thanks Jimi Festival 2010

    Does any of you, dear readers, know what is the official Guinness World Record for "Largest Guitar Ensemble" (most people playing guitar at the same time)? If you don't, you can click the link above, quickly look it up on Google or believe me that the number is 6,346.

    The reason I am mentioning this is simple. No, I don't play guitar myself (wish I could), but this record happened to be set in my home city in Poland - Wrocław. On 01 May 2009 in Wrocław's city square 6,346 guitar enthusiasts played together "Hey Joe" by Jimmy Hendrix with special guests participating in the event - Deep Purple whose guitar player, Steve Morse took an active part in.

Steve Morse          Photo by Monika Worgacz.               

    The beginnings of the annual "Guitar World Record" beating in Wrocław dates seven years back, during which we sometimes succeed and sometimes not. Our previous record (1,951) set on 01 May 2008 was thereafter beaten by Americans from Concorde in California who raised the number by a 101 guitarists to 2,052. I can only speculate, but I think that if it weren't for the Americans the current record wouldn't have been so high. They challenged us and we responded accordingly to our national tradition - we overreacted. Having more than tripled the previous world record we have shown what an angry polish mob can archive - virtually anything, providing someone told him he CANNOT do it. ;-)

Here's a brief relation from that day:

    The record still stands, but we are getting ready for raising the bar up again during Thanks Jimi Festival 2010. As usual, on May the 1st, guitar lovers from Poland will gather in Wrocław in attempt to beat their own record. During the event, apart from polish bands Dżem and TSA, we'll have the honour to welcome american guitarist Greg Koch with his band and former lead singer of Genesis, Ray Wilson with a band Stiltskin.

    Will it be possible to achieve it now that the rage is gone and we have no one to beat but ourselves? If you'll be in Wrocław area on that day you can find out yourself, or better yet - bring your guitar and rock along!