What did you get up to on your Christmas holidays?
While you were recovering from your Christmas banquet food coma or planning the perfect roadtrip playlist en route to your summer music festival of choice, a Californian crew of technicians were working their butts off to create the world’s largest record.
A team of 75 worked day and night through the Christmas holiday period to construct the gigantic vinyl record, an enormous replica of Hotel California by The Eagles, constructed atop the newly renovated California live music venue The Forum, as Consequence Of Sound reports.
The massive vinyl recreation, which is bigger than four football fields, is to commemorate the legendary rock band’s six forthcoming dates in January to rechristen the Forum, following the Inglewood venue being purchased by the Madison Square Garden Company in 2012 and giving the 18,000 capacity site a $100 million upgrade.
The replica of the Eagles’ landmark 1977 record coincides with the upcoming concerts and will remain atop the venue through the first week of February.
The gigantic Hotel California took 200,000 man hours and 45 days to build, from design through to construction, spans 5.6 acres and weighs over 55,000 pounds (approximately 22,679 kg).
The 4,884-inch (roughly 124 metres) record also spins at roughly 17mph (which is a mightily slowed down version of the 1977 rock classic), while 15,000 LED lights spelling out the vinyl label in a scale as big as the Hollywood sign means that LAX passengers should be able to spot the rotating vinyl roof as they arrive into the Californian airport.
“Although we’ve made a replica, the entire thing is still made from vinyl,” explains Nick Spamanato, Vice President & General Manager of The Forum, in a promo video about the project. “We wanted to celebrate two Southern Californian icons, The Eagles and The Forum, and what better way to marry them both?” he says.
Though it easily takes the honours of being the world’s largest vinyl, it doesn’t quite take the accolade of being the biggest playable record on Earth. The construction crew didn’t manage to fashion a giant record needle to play the super-sized Hotel California (which may be for the best for the non-AOR loving residents of Inglewood).
The grand opening of The Forum takes place on January 15th with the Eagles also performing 17th, 18th, 22nd, 24th and 25th at the upgraded venue.
“Most of southern California has great memories here, be it sports or concerts, and I’m so happy they saved the building because it was almost too late,” the band’s Joe Walsh told Rolling Stone recently. “And we just tear everything down and build condos, and it’s nice to have a little bit of heritage. It’s not for sports, it’s for music and it’s gonna be state of the art.”
The full-scale record replica is probably not quite what Walsh had in mind by “state of the art”, but it can be added to the growing list of vinyl curios, including the edible chocolate vinyl from a Croatian rock star, the world’s first 3D printed records (and accompanying pop-up store) and a company that will press your ashes into your favourite record so you can R.I.V. (that’s Rest In Vinyl).
