Every year at UC Davis’ Picnic Day there is the Battle of Bands featuring marching/pep bands from across the state of California. One of the highlights is the performance of Beginnings by the entire group. It’s a 30-minute long romp that is always fun for everyone (even for the flutes and clarinets — we dance mostly because there isn’t parts for us).

That annual event is the closest thing I can think of that compares with this:
930 saxophones playing at the same time. Jazz group The Shuffle Demons organized this world-record attempt last week in Toronto.

Details:
http://www.shuffledemons.com/world_details.php

What’s even scarier is the wallpaper:
http://www.shuffledemons.com/images/world/record_photo_800x600.jpg

Seeing so many saxophones is daunting. Note, I was going to make a snide joke about the dangers of combining so many egos in one place, but it seemed like a low blow.

The song they chose to play was “Canada’s Second National Anthem” – the theme song to the Hockey Night in Canada telecast. Actually, they played the song on Hockey Night and it sounded surprisingly good considering that nearly 1,000 people are trying to play at the same time.

All and all, it would have been nice to have been there.