NO SLEEP IN STOUFFVILLE
Pub is on a ’round-the-clock mission to set its second world record,
One record set, one record left to break.
Stouffville, Ont., now officially owns one Guinness World Record for “longest live concert streamed over the Internet,” or whatever the complicated language of the Guinness Book of World Records might currently term it.
Anyway, that’s not the grail. But the many madfolk currently staging what they hope will become the world’s longest (recorded) non-stop concert by multiple artists at the Earl of Whitchurch pub on Main St. in this quasi-rural suburb northeast of Toronto crossed the streaming line around 8 a.m. on Saturday, 181 hours and a little more than a week after launching their larger Guinness world-record attempt on St. Patrick’s Day.
Organizer Kevin Ker — currently also vying with his many co-conspirators in Stouffville for world’s baggiest, most sleep-deprived eyes — brushed the moment off casually Saturday evening, however, as a mere blip on the way to the Big Finish. A Big Finish that was, by the way, pushed well beyond its original goal of 372 hours and 10 minutes — essentially 16 consecutive days’ worth of non-stop live music — when AJ’s Café in Detroit got the jump on the Earl with its own attempt at the world’s longest concert on March 9.
The Detroit gambit to unseat reigning world champion the Ri Ra Irish Pub — housed in the 24-hour-a-day Mandalay Bay casino complex in Las Vegas and, thus, operating at perhaps even more of an advantage over small-town Ontario than the High- land Park area of Detroit that AJ’s Café calls home — did finally wind down its own effort around 7:45 p.m. on Saturday evening, owner A.J. O’Neil confirmed on Sunday afternoon. Ker and company must now surpass 396 hours, 45 minutes and 35 seconds to claim the longest-concert record for Canada, which means they’re going to have to keep on rockin’ until at least April 2.
This is, no doubt, why they didn’t consider Saturday morning’s “longest live stream” marker that important.
“It was actually pretty tame, man,” Ker said of the scene, while gladhanding an endless stream of enthusiastic supporters at a packed Earl of Whitchurch early on Saturday night.
“I actually woke up to come back here for 8 a.m. and brought the kids and we were all sitting here and there were about 40 people in the room and when we broke the record this big cheer went up and then we all just went on about our day. That was never the primary focus. We just had to mark that occasion as part of our Guinness requirements.”
Even if the Earl doesn’t make its original target of 16 non-stop days of live music, or however much longer beyond the target now set by AJ’s they intend to go — Ker has made a friendly bet with O’Neil to sing the national anthem at a Detroit Tigers game, or O’Neil at a Toronto Blue Jays game, depending upon who wins — the Stouffville attempt has already raised close to $40,000 for the 16 charities benefiting from its rolling $5-a-head party.
And it’s definitely a party. People have started to show up with pyja- mas and pizza during the overnight hours. It’s officially a “thing.”
“The crowds have been insane, and they’ve been back. We’ve had lineups every single night — in Stouffville,” said Ker. “That might not seem like a ‘thing’ in Toronto but it sure is in Stouffville. I don’t know that this bar has ever had a lineup, let alone on every single night.”
So popular has the Earl’s worldrecord marathon become as a local attraction that even the mayor of Whitchurch-Stouffville, Justin Altmann, had to wait outside along with about 18 other people to get through the doors on Saturday night.
“This is not big, it’s massive,” Altmann said when he finally got inside. “As the mayor of the town, I couldn’t get into any bar in town tonight. The lineups were, like, two to three hours all the way down. What Kevin has done for economic development, what they’ve done for the town, has been great and just a really good thing.”
Ker, for his part, has learned after more than a week in the game to relax once in a while and leave the work to his world-record team and the more than 400 musicians involved from time to time so he might “try to go on about my normal life as much as possible” during his hours away from the Earl.
On Saturday, for instance, he’d attended two band practices and a friend’s baby-unveiling party before showing up at the pub.
“Once we’d started, we realized we can’t stop this and re-map it out and pull back and revisit it on the fly. That was the biggest thing for us,” he said.
“So at the beginning, we had all of us here for, like, two days straight. And I was literally gonna die after three days. Everybody was walking by me saying, like, ‘Kev, you need to go home.’
“But then I would lie in bed for an hour staring at the ceiling after I got home going, ‘Holy s---, maybe this would work better. I should go back.’ ”
Co-runner Heather Scala looked similarly exhausted but put a brave face on it, praising the event’s many volunteer supporters and increasingly organized community members who keep showing up to man the space during the 3-to-11a.m. “off” hours, or to supply the team with food and coffee and, occasionally, banana bread and toiletries. A local dentist dropped off care packages full of toothbrushes and toothpastes a couple of nights back, for instance.
“They have created an insular, protective cell around us. They show up at all hours with food, baked goods and toiletries,” she said.
“There’s a core group of people who arrive at 4 a.m. and they will not leave until more people arrive in the early morning hours.”
Even the local constabulary has been filling in.
“My favourite was a few nights ago when we were down to 15 or 16 people during the early morning and one of our volunteers said, ‘Don’t worry, I called the cops,’ ” laughed Ker.
“Within a few minutes, we had two cruisers outside and then four cops came inside with their coffees, just hanging out.”
“Really,” Scala said. “They were just chilling in their cruisers.”
“There’s a core group of people who arrive at 4 a.m. and they will not leave until more people arrive in the early morning hours.“CO-ORGANIZER HEATHER SCALA