So first, Brixam England had the world record for “Most Pirates Gathered” with 1,469 pirates – actually, someone else surely had it before them, but this is when the chatter started. Portland Oregon then swooped in and took the prize with 1,651 pirates. England then reclaimed the title with 1,722 pirates gathered in Devon, followed by USA once again with something in the neighborhood of 2,600 pirates at the NorCal Pirate Festival. Well, the official tally of NorCal isn’t even in yet, and already England has trumped everyone with a reported excess of 4,000 pirates gathered in Liverpool:
I only have two questions, though. 1) What was San Fransisco based pirate-band There Be Pirates doing helping England trounce their own hometown’s recent record? One could almost accuse them of acting like, well, like pirates. OK, so no real news there. But 2) and FAR more important, with so many thousands of pirates in the US and UK alike, why aren’t more of them tuning into Bilgemunky Radio each week? Seriously, forget eyepatches and peglegs – if they’re not Bilgemunky fans, then they’re just posers.
You mean I had to stand still in the heat for 10 whole minutes while holding up my wrist-band for nothing?!?! Son of a bitch! Let’s get those British bastards!!! And I call shinanigans. I want proof of all those pirates. It was probably just 4,000 cardboard cuttouts of Johnny Depp.
You mean you have heat over there? I was in the Devon attempt and it was bloody freezing. Saying that even I can’t believe they managed to get 4000 Pirates in Liverpool. I would have gone myself but just had surgery.
AYe, Posers Indeed! Seems that they have a geographic advantage where all can drive less than two hours and fake being a pirate to be counted…Eye say they be cheats and liars, most not even having fired a flintlock, eerrr even sailed on a tall ship! Me Thinks of it this way, ifen we can draw almost 3,000 in just one Geographic area for NorCal… What is the real number Nation wide…Obvious to me thar numbers in the UK have already peeked and can be trumped by the *US* hands down! We’ll have them begging for Parlay!
No matter what, we were the best looking pirates ever and further more… I do not believe those wanta-bes… arrrrrgh alass we were just practicing anyway and we can kick thar arsses anytime if we have a mind too…
We “the NorCal Pirate Festival” don’t think we lost it to Liverpool. IF you read the news article, they “the promoters” are nervously waiting for their number confirmation. If you look at the photo attached to the news article, you will see that many people are not in any sort of pirate clothing/costume, and the crowd is much smaller than our was, in fact it looks smaller than Portlands picture.
In fact, here’s a link to the page with the group pic from Liverpool:
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/07/19/mersey-pirate-muster-brings-4000-pirates-to-liverpool-waterfront-92534-26880705/
Here’s a pic from the NorCal PirateFest Website:
http://www.norcalpiratefestival.com/mainpage.htm
And just in case anyone’s curious, here’s Portland’s:
http://www.portlandpiratefestival.com/
Hmmmm?
Posers? Nah, these were the real thing. No doubt all these brethren of the coast showed up to hear us perform several times a day from arrgghhhh stage on the Earl of Pembroke, and then got themselves counted. We humble musickal pirates of There Be Pirates! were glad to be part of the Merseyside Pirate Muster and this world record, even though we’re not from San Francisco.
We’ve been having far too much fun in England, once again. We debuted arrgghhhh new album, Pirates in the Desert, at a CD release party at Danby Castle last Friday, partied arrghhhselves silly in Liverpool over the weekend, paid a visit to the Trincomalee in Hartlepool yesterday, and arrgghhhh off to Scarborough for arrghhhh encore performance at Sea Fest this weekend, followed by a visit to the Ryedale Folk Museum. Ye munkey types may question why we’re here helping the likes of Liverpool to set records, but we’re into the sweet trade itself, so should the booty be bountiful, we’ll be there!
cheers from England,
Shanghai Brown & the crew o’ There Be Pirates!
Hrmmm… at first I thought the naysayin’ was all just sour grapes, but it does indeed sound like Liverpool’s triumph might be overblown. We’ll see what Guiness has to say on the matter, I suppose.
And congrats on the new CD, Shanghai – I had to poke fun, but I don’t think any pirate worth a scup would fault you for performing a limey pirate festivals 😛
No sour grapes here. So far Portland and Bruxham have been gracious with their loss of world record. (although officially Bruxham is the current record holder)
Right now we’re in the validation process and we don’t know what our final “official” number will be until we hear from the good folks at Guinness. I would like to think that we blasted the number out of the water, and that it will be at least a few years before someone takes it from us. if/when that happens, we’ll “try” to be as gracious as our predecessors…. then take it right back!
Yarrrr!
I be thinkin’ I gotta see a few more pictures with a whole LOT MORE pirates in ’em before I take the record away from NorCal.
Not that I”m biased, o’ course…
okay- potential record…still waitin’ on those Guinness types!
Aye be thinkin’ that they had a pretty good count there in Liverpool, what with over 50,000 people attending the festival. They staged the pirate count on an area that you had to reach via a bridge, and they had staff counting on each entry point, and they were only supposed to count pirates, not others who were coming along to check out the spectacle. There certainly were a great number of buccaneering types in attendance that Sunday, but I was busy performing, not counting.
The L’pool Daily Post obviously didn’t catch arrgghhhh set as they said we entertained the crowds with “traditional” shanties, which is only partially true, of course, as we rarely do the traditional shanties traditionally.
Whatever the final tally, we want to thank On the Waterfront, the Walk the Plank organizers, and all the fine folk of Liverpool for having the good taste to invite us to perform, for being such a great audience, and for being such wonderful hosts! That was the second summer for There Be Pirates! performing in Liverpool and Scarborough, and we can’t wait to get back next summer!
Wait a moment me Hearties!!What happened to me Brethern,The Germans,who laid claim to a record;before those British Scoundrals,stole it again.Me French Compatriots must be sipping some Merlot,that why we never post a Record of the most Pirates or are we to busy looking fer some heads to chop off-aaaarrrrgh!!!