Encore!

Yesterday, in Halberstadt, Germany, the second chord sounded during what is been touted as "the World's Longest Lasting Concert".  No, it's not Pink Floyd.  American experimental composer John Cage - who has been worm food for almost 15 years - composed an organ piece which lasts 639 years.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The concert started on September 5, 2001 - with dead silence.  The first chord (G#5) didn't sound until February 2, 2003.  Two additional notes - an E and an E one octave higher - were introduced in July 2004, and are scheduled to be released in May of this year.  The notes, played on a specially constructed organ, are held down by weights.  The weights are added and removed as necessary by a musician.  And, by "musician", I mean "whoever hasn't fallen into a coma". 

Surely, the box office receipts should be astounding.  Even if Ticketron only sells ten tickets a day at the usual and customary rate of $50 (not including their 350% "convenience fee"), you're looking at gross ticket sales of slightly under $120 million dollars.  Promotors expect sales of concert tees to propel total revenue over the $200 million mark.

Cage groupie Margaret Henderson, 97, expressed high praise tinged with a little remorse.  "Oh, it just rocks!  I wish I could stay for the whole concert, but I'll be dead before they hit the 10th chord."

Rolling Stone magazine reported, in an ongoing concert review, "[Cage] breathes life into a style noted for instrumental underindulgence.  At times, however, he slips back into the "too many notes" style of his predecessors, notably during the passage featuring 5 different notes in under 18 months."

Concert security chief Gutmar Overdieg noted that a mere twelve persons had been expelled from the venue - nine for underage drinking, two for indecent exposure, and one for misdemeanor snoring.