Jack White Hopes To Set Guinness World Record For Most Metaphors Used On Stage

Jack White concerts are about to get strange. The former White Stripes guitarist has accepted a challenge from the Guinness Book of World Records and will embark on his Summer tour with one thing on his mind: to use as many metaphors as humanly possible on stage.

White recently called the Guinness Book of World Records an “elitist” organization since they refused to recognize his attempt at playing “the world’s shortest concert.” Guinness sent White a message, explaining why the record attempt was rejected and issuing a challenge to the musician to set a new record.

Guinness explained that the “world’s shortest concert” was actually admitted into the record books initially. But then the book received thousands of other attempts and decided that it was impossible to measure “shortest concert.”

Guinness writes:

“The White Stripes were in fact recognized in the 2009 Edition of the Guinness World Records book for the shortest music concert ever… Subsequent to this appearance we received a large volume of applications from bands and performers seeking to beat this record… The results were difficult to objectively measure… The nature of competing to make something the ‘shortest’ by its very nature trivializes the activity being carried out, and Guinness World Records has been forced to reject many claims of this kind. As such, we have been forced to cease listing records for the shortest song, shortest poem, and indeed the shortest concert.”

Guinness said that they greatly admired Jack White and hoped that he would try again for another record. Well, White has accepted the challenge.

White said that he would attempt to use more metaphors on stage than any other performer in history during his Summer tour. White told Spin:

“The attempt may prove very exhausting and at times even dangerous, but the results could prove to be glorious and possibly even vainglorious. White and Third Man Records are certain that the extremely scientific and intricate analysis of the metaphors that occur will be examined in accordance with Guinness’ usually very thorough methods probably, or at the very least if somebody answers the phone at the pub. Third Man Records encourages all attendees of said concerts to please not interfere or interject with any metaphors that they witness occur during the show as to not disqualify or worse yet, trivialize the metaphor in question. In addition all concert attendees are encouraged to entice as many metaphors to occur during the show that they possibly can as long as they don’t endanger themselves or Mr. White.”

Here’s a video of the White Stripes shortest concert record attempt.