A Wollongong local named Scott Burford has had a crack at the world record for longest guitar-playing marathon, by strumming his acoustic non-stop (basically) for an insane 125 hours.
The 49-year-old kicked into his first song at midday on Sunday, 15th July and played his final on Friday afternoon, 20th July, and is now awaiting official approval from the folks at Guinness to confirm he’s bagged the record.
And it was no mean feat. Speaking with the ABC, Burford confirmed that he ended the marathon with a nastily swollen and blistered hand and a pair of very bleary eyes.
“I had super-glue put over my fingers to hold the skin together,” he said. “I had a nurse and a former paramedic check me out [during the attempt] to make sure I was ok.”
The veteran muso also received round-the-clock support to ensure he met all the strict rules governing an official record attempt.
“He was allowed a 30-second break in between songs, so that’s when he got his food in,” Mike Miller, the general manager of the Engadine music shop where the whole thing went down, told the ABC.
“For every hour he played, he accrued five minutes of rest time.”
Well, that answers our burning question about bathroom breaks.
The whole thing was filmed (watch clips below), and each of the 500 songs in Burford’s repertoire were only allowed to be repeated once every four hours (which is a relief tbh; imagine hearing ‘Smoke On The Water’ for 125 hours straight… *shudders*).
Burford used his world record attempt to raise money for the charity Musicians Making A Difference, which supports vulnerable young people. At the time of writing, he has raised over $6,600 at his everydayhero page.
A bunch of friendly local musos also jumped in to jam with old mate at various points to keep his spirits up, which is just lovely.
The current official guitar marathon record stands at 114 hours and 6 minutes, set in 2011 by Dave Browne from Dublin, so as long as the folks at Guinness give Burford the thumbs up, it sounds like we’ll have a new Aussie world record holder on our hands.
Very solid effort!
