Hundreds of Australian Bagpipers Attempt to Set World Record While Playing AC/DC

The performance of “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)” took place a few days before the band played its first show in Australia in a decade

Ella Feldman - Daily Correspondent

November 20, 2025 10:29 a.m.

A group of 374 bagpipers performed in Melbourne's Federation Square. Asanka Ratnayake / Getty Images

Hundreds of bagpipers set a new world record for the largest bagpipe ensemble while playing AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).”

A whopping 374 pipers joined forces in Melbourne to play the Australian hard rock band’s 1975 tune, which features a call-and-response between an electric guitar and bagpipes. The performance took place at Melbourne’s Federation Square on Swanston Street, which served as the backdrop for the song’s official music video nearly 50 years ago.

In the video, AC/DC performs from the bed of a truck making its way down the street, and Scottish-Australian lead singer Bon Scott plays the bagpipes alongside three pipers from the Rats of Tobruk Memorial Pipes and Drums.

AC/DC - It's A Long Way To The Top [Official Music Video], Full HD (Remaster, Resync and Upscale)

One of the pipers in the original music video is Les Kenfield, who participated in last week’s record-breaking performance because he wanted to help promote and preserve the art of bagpipe playing, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). “Piping is really a dying art; young kids don't really want to play,” Kenfield tells ABC. “In my band, if everyone over 70 resigned, there would be no band left.”

Another piper from the music video, Kevin Conlon, was also in attendance, per the Associated Press’ Rod McGuirk.

Last week’s performance in Federation Square brought out pipers of all ages, including 14-year-old Charli Millar, who tells the Guardian’s Matilda Boseley that she’s loved the instrument since she was 4. “I love the pipes, and we needed as many people as we could to play, so I thought I'd play,” Millar tells ABC.

The Australian Book of Records confirmed that 374 pipers were in attendance, officially breaking the 2012 record. Officials with Guinness World Records, the more famous record-tracking organization, tell the AP that they hadn’t been asked to confirm the Melbourne record.

Fun fact: What was the previous bagpipe record?

In 2012, 333 pipers in Bulgaria broke the record for the world’s largest bagpipe ensemble.

After celebrating their new record, the bagpipers played impromptu renditions of “Happy Birthday” and “Amazing Grace,” the AP reports.

The record-breaking performance took place a few days before AC/DC’s first Australian gig in a decade. Last week, the band took the stage at Melbourne Cricket Ground and played so loudly that the resulting ground vibrations were picked up by earthquake sensors two miles away, ABC reports.

“The sound waves that people were experiencing nearby and feeling something through their bodies, that’s the equivalent to what our seismographs feel,” Adam Pascale, chief scientist at Australia’s Seismology Research Center, tells ABC.

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