Montreal-born Gonzales sets world record for longest concert by a solo artist

Victoria Ahearn, THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO - Montreal-born musician Gonzales was recovering from insomnia, hallucinations and cramped muscles Tuesday after setting a Guinness World Record for the longest concert by a solo artist.

"There's still a lot of adrenalin left over in my system," the singer, songwriter, rapper and producer said in a telephone interview from Paris after he set the record on the piano over a period of 27 hours, three minutes and 44 seconds.

"So I must admit I'm not quite sleeping for long periods. It's more like catching whatever naps I can."

Gonzales, whose real name is Jason Beck, began his record attempt late Saturday at Cine 13 Theatre in Paris.

He achieved it around 3 a.m. local time Monday onstage in front of a giant digital clock, hundreds of confetti-tossing supporters and a Guinness official, who gave him a certificate that made the milestone official.

The previous record was 26 hours and 12 minutes, set by Prasanna Gudi in India in December 2008.

"I'm trying to bring the competitive spirit back to music in a positive way," Gonzales - a classically trained pianist who has collaborated with the likes of Feist and Peaches - said in explaining why he wanted to break the record.

Throughout the show, the comical artist bantered with the crowd, ate a bowl of cereal and got a massage and his faced shaved while playing 240 songs, including the Canadian national anthem.

He also changed into several outfits, including a pyjama-nightcap combo to signify morning, a cardigan and tie to reflect a "Sunday afternoon church outfit" and a lab coat, "because at some point it became very scientific."

"Around the afternoon I felt like I was performing surgery," recalled the consummate showman, who released his last album, "Soft Power," in April 2008.

About 1,000 people bought tickets to see the show, which unfolded in three-hour sets, with 15-minute breaks in between. Most audience members watched just for one set, said Gonzales, adding "a few people bought 27-hour tickets, but they were really insane."

The event was also broadcast live on the website ustream.tv and about 85,000 people - including Feist - watched at some point on the site, he added.

Around hour 4, Gonzales said his forearms grew cramped, so doctors gave him something to calm his muscles and told him to drink lots of water.

In the last few hours, he started to hallucinate when he looked at the keys so he had to don a blindfold.

"I did have some hallucinations," he said. "I couldn't really look at the piano keys without kind of getting a strange, blurry-vision effect, and if I closed my eyes I would kind of go to the zone where I thought I might fall asleep or have little moments of trance or sleep, and so I got the solution to blindfold myself."

When he arrived at his Paris home after the feat, he said he "stared at the wall for a while," got in touch with friends and loved ones, and went to bed.

Remarkably, he's already hit the keys again to compose music for a movie.

"I ended up working for about three hours this morning and it was really tough, I must say," he said.

Gonzales said setting the record has helped him identify with his Canadian roots.

"The Guinness adjudicator told me that Canadians are one of a handful of four or five countries who do the most Guinness World Records, including some of the more useless ones," he said. "The guy who squirts milk from his eye comes from Canada. There's a whole rogues' gallery of us and when he told me that, I thought, 'Yeah, it kind of makes sense.'

"Something about the combination of the humour and the detachment and, I don't know, I felt like I reaffirmed something Canadian about myself by doing this record."

© The Canadian Press, 2009
(Victoria Ahearn, THE CANADIAN PRESS)

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