374 AC/DC Bagpipers Blow Away Previous World Record

374 AC/DC bagpipers came together at Melbourne’s Federation Square on November 12, 2025 to perform "It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll)". The AC/DC anthem famously features bagpipes. According to Loudwire, the event, “The Great Melbourne Bagpipe Bash,” smashed the previous record of 333 pipers set in Bulgaria in 2012.

The location on the event held special meaning. Back in 1976 AC/DC filmed the original music video for the song on a flat-bed truck heading down Swanston Street in Melbourne, accompanied by several members of the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band.

Two of the three bagpipers who appeared in that video, Les Kenfield and Kevin Conlon returned and took part in the record-breaking performance. “It didn’t strike you at the time how big this event is until now,” Kenfield told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “Now it’s one of the greatest things... probably the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Among the 374 participants was a 98-year-old piper, an example of the event’s wide range of age and experience. The crowd of thousands cheered on as the pipers completed the song, then followed up with an encore of “Happy Birthday” and “Amazing Grace.”

The record-setting performance coincided with AC/DC’s long-awaited Australian tour stop at the nearby Melbourne Cricket Ground. Many fans wore AC/DC shirts and attended the pipe performance before heading to the AC/DC concert. While the attempt was confirmed by the Australian Book of Records, the Guinness World Records has not been approached for formal certification.

Here's the original video with an impossibly young AC/DC heading down Swanston Street in Melbourne roughly 50 years ago.