Earthdance Officially Holds the Guinness Book of World Records’ Title for Largest Drum Ensemble

San Francisco (California), USA – Earthdance: The Global Festival For Peace with conductor Mickey Hart officially holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for the “Largest Drum Ensemble,” consisting of 4,374 participants, exceeding the former record by over 1000 for the largest drumming circle in history. On September 18th, 2004 at the Festival’s ‘Mother Ship’ location at
Mendocino County’s Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville, California, EarthDance hosted “Drums Of Peace,” in an attempt to break the world record.

Remo Drums donated 3,500 drums, which were given to registrants and additionally almost 1000 more drums were brought in by festival participants.The drum circle was led by Grateful Dead drummer and world music percussionist Mickey Hart and friends. Mr. Hart brought along a host of world class drummers which included Zakir Hussain, Sikuru Adepoju, Airto Moreira, Karl Perazzo (Santana), Kim Atkinson, Chalo Edwardo, Gregg Ellis, and Jorge Bermudez to help lead the participants.

They performed the song “Not Fade Away” for the required 5 minutes and continued on for another hour playing with the entire ensemble, each drummer taking a section to lead in their own style.

The pilot of an airplane, flying overhead capturing the drums on video from the air commented “The only thing pilots have ever felt while flying that was manmade was the bombs they had just dropped. Today I felt the air moving my airplanes wings to the Drums of Peace.”

Since 1997, Earthdance has become the largest synchronized music & dance festival in the world.