Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/30/watch-smells-like-teen-spiri.html
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Great to see they’re playing arenas now. I knew they’d be big from their early club shows… they were always packed.
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This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.
For real, very cool.
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My favorite version’s played on six ukuleles:
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I imagine Cesena as place full of happy mutants, doing mostly wonderful things.
The two former performances were also great
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Cool to see that it looks like everyone was actually plugged in and contributing to the sound. Would be interesting to know how they distributed sync (click track or something else) to everyone. Without that it would be impossible to stay in time over such a large area.
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As a former marching band geek, they way they keep in time is the CONDUCTOR.
Visual cues are instantaneous (well, they aren’t but speed of light might as well be instantaneous on these scales). As a drummer occasionally stuck towards the back of formation, we had to learn very explicitly to rely on watching the Drum Major to signal starts, holds, and to stay on beat. When an band is spread over 100 yards of field, you can’t rely on the sound alone to keep you in sync.
The person isn’t waving the stick/baton up there for their own amusement.
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I haven’t watched this video yet (going to as soon as I get someplace I can turn up the sound) but in previous ones they had a large flashing light next to the conductor as well.
Edit: yep, the paired circular lights on either side of the conductor’s podium, visible at 3:34.
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Really dig the towel-swinging move towards the end. I don’t recall my orchestra conductor using that move.
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Stopped at an intersection waiting for a stop light once where three cars next to mine that had this song cranked up and each driver was singing along. It was fun as everyone sort of looked at each and drove off. However, this mass rendition was waaaay better! That looked like fun. 
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love this entire organization. So many more songs they must do.
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They have like five Dave Grohls!
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What did THAT smell like?
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I’m not a sound nerd, so help me out. Why is it that the drums (un-amped?) and voices sound representative of the mass of people, but the guitars didn’t? Most prominent during the guitar solo, it sounded like there were maybe a handful of guitars playing instead of the dozens we see. I can’t imagine they were all synced and tuned so precisely that there weren’t variations in tone conveying the mass of instruments.
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I wonder what Kurt would have thought of this
Splitting the door 1000 ways - plus transporting all those drums! How many roadies do you think are involved? How hard would it be to just say your in the band and sneak in? What if you have creative differences do they take a vote or is it like a committee and they elect band leaders? Have they ever tried playing every note at once just to see what it sounds like? Just how many lead guitars can you have before your not really “leading” anymore? Is this just a case of instead of getting rid of a couple weaker bandmates they just decided to drown them out with some more players and it just got out of hand? If sometimes less is more, then can more be more or is it just less in which case it is also more? How many outlets are they using? If they all jumped at the same time, could they literally rock the planet? I got questions is what I’m trying to say here.
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Wait a minute - their set is just one song?
I was thinking the same, the mix sounds like many voices but few instruments are coming through. The spot with the wammy bar guitar at 3:25 would sound like mud if everyone were equal in the mix, there one guy without a wammy picking it.
I’ll bet that smells like a whole lot 'o teen spirit.
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Fantastic! (But I think some of the choreography was a bit off - need practice syncing)
