Sometimes less is more….

A unique concert took place in Tokyo on 29 June when rock band Golden Bomber went on stage for an entire eight seconds. The event was to promote their latest single “Deatte 8-byo” (“8-Second Encounter”) which has an approximate running time of — you guessed it — eight seconds!

Have a look, but don’t blink or you’ll miss most of it.

You might expect the crowd to feel a little cheated, despite the fact that this was a free concert. However, fans seemed to really dig the rapid fire performance and shouted for an encore.

Touched by the support, Golden Bomber returned to the stage where lead singer Sho Kiryuin asked, “How was it? We put our all into those eight seconds.” He then expressed his appreciation — especially to those who arrived six hours early for the show — saying, “Thank you for coming out to see us for eight seconds,” before the band began performing a full version of their hit “Memeshikute.”

Viewers online were amused by the absurdity of stunt.

“LOL, the countdown was longer than the show.”
“I wonder how much they got paid for each second.”
“All that preparation for eight seconds… lol.”
“I don’t understand it, but it’s impressive.”
“Is that a Guinness Record?”

In response to that last question, the answer would be “no” for several reasons. Firstly, the record for “shortest concert” had been set by the White Stripes in Canada back in 2007 when they held a free concert that consisted of a quickly muted string pluck and cymbal hit in unison lasting a fraction of a second.

Guinness admitted the White Stripes’ record in the 2009 edition, but has since removed it because they were flooded by requests by bands wanting to beat it, and they weren’t sure how to handle the logistics of such a challenge.

Then there’s also the sticky fact that Golden Bomber aren’t actually playing the music in the video or any other of their live performances. As a well-documented “air band” Kiryuin’s vocals are the only live sound coming out of the group while on stage as everyone else just pretends to play.

It worked for the Monkees in their early years so why not Golden Bomber too? However, its just these kinds of technicalities that probably made Guinness want to wash their hands of the whole thing.

By the way, in case you’re wondering what’s so special about eight seconds: Golden Bomber also recently released a “greatest hits” collection of music stamps, which are high-end emojis used on the messaging app LINE. These particular stamps will play an eight second clip from one of Golden Bomber’s 22 biggest songs.

So in keeping with a common “greatest hits” custom, a brand new track was also added to the line-up. And of course, due to the technical limitations of the stamps, this new song had to be eight seconds long.

This should come as great news to Napalm Death who can fit their entire Guinness-Record-winning song “You Suffer” into a single music stamp eight or nine times on a continuous loop!

Source: My Game News Flash, Oricon News, NME
Top image: YouTube/oricon