A Reston, Virginia, woman is attempting to break a Guinness World Record by listening to jam bands, steel drums and country music, as she tries to see the most live concerts in a single week.
“When you’re experiencing live music, you’re in the moment,” Jeanette Pagliuco said. “You leave all your troubles and your worries behind.”
Pagliuco moved to Reston, Virginia, from her home state of Connecticut over a year ago to be closer to her adult son.
After moving, she remembers thinking: “Wow, there is a lot of music, there’s a lot of local talent, there’s a lot of great venues.’”
She joined a meetup group that focused on live music. After several months of attending loads of concerts in Northern Virginia, she was asked to run the group: NoVa Live Music Mingle.
At one point, she was going to so many concerts that she wondered how many she could attend in one week. She even searched to find out if there was a record.
The Guinness Book of World Records did in fact have one — 21 shows in seven days.
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“I thought I could do it. I applied,” Pagliuco said. “I heard about six weeks later from the Guinness Book, and they said, ‘You know what? Yep, go ahead. If you can break it, go for it.'”
There are strict requirements she needs to follow to qualify for breaking the record, including getting witnesses, going to music-focused venues and documenting each show with pictures and videos, Pagliuco said.
“The hardest part was trying to find, within a week, all these shows that met the criteria,” she told WTOP. “It just so happened to be this week.”
As of Tuesday morning, she has attended 16 shows, getting 14 of them in three days over the weekend.
Most of the concerts have been local acts, such as Pool Boys, Marilyn Hucek and Collective. She’s heard from some of those performers about her decision to focus on local musicians’ shows.
“I cannot even say how appreciative they are that I’m highlighting local music,” she said. “Local musicians, local talent at local venues. And they’re like, ‘Nobody does that.”
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She’s also using this as an opportunity to broaden her musical horizon, attending a steel drum show and R&B concert. She also plans to see a mariachi band.
“I really wanted to tap into different genres just to push myself,” Pagliuco said.
She told WTOP she expects to break the record sometime Wednesday.
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