GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS REACHES NEW DEPTHS...
Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday pays a visit to the largest man-made object ever
built to hear the world's deepest ever concert by one of the planet's biggest selling
female artists.
As record-breaking adjudications go, this trip was fairly superlative: not only had I been
invited to visit the Troll A gas platform – at one time, the tallest man-made object ever moved,
and to this day the
largest man-made
object ever moved – but I would then be dropping over 300 m (nearly 1,000 ft) to the seabed to hear
a concert – the
deepest ever
performed – by the multi-platinum singer Katie Melua (Georgia/UK). I predicted from the invitation
that it was going to be trip of a lifetime...
and I would be right, assuming I could pass the helicopter crash training!
The Troll A platform made headlines around the world in 1996 when the 656,000-ton 472-m-tall
(1,548-ft) platform was tugged from Vats in Norway to the Troll field, 80 km (50 miles) off
Bergen - often clearing the seabed by just a metre as it was dragged through the fjords. Now,
10 years later, to celebrate the rig's anniversary, owners Statoil decided to throw a concert.
But not just any concert... a record-breaking "gig in a rig" that would once again catapult
the rig back on to the front pages of newspapers around the world.
The star chosen for the gig was Katie Melua, the diminutive popstar best known for hits
"Nine Million Bicycles" and "Closest Thing to Crazy", and one of the world's best known
performers, despite her young age (b. 1984). She and her merry band of rag-bag session
musicians had travelled to the Troll A platform a day ahead of me to set up. They also endured
a day of helicopter crash training - a task that I, thankfully, was able to pass on. And what
a relief when I heard it was optional! I watched the "how to survive a helicopter crash in the
North Sea" video as I donned my survival suit and decided that I would rather be killed on
impact than survive long enough for the suit to do its high-tech business. The suit itself is
a genius piece of clothing - skin tight, inflates and emits a GPS signal on contact with water,
keeps you warm as you bob about in the North Sea waiting for rescue. But it was like trying to
fit yourself, fully clothed, into a plucked raw chicken. It felt like it weighed a tonne, and
as I literally bent over backwards to get the thing on, I managed to pull a couple of muscles
in places I never knew I had. All it needed was an extra pocket with a waterproof cyanide
capsule for those lazy survivors who wouldn't be able to squeeze themselves through the
chopper's tiny windows.
Helicopter rides are always exciting, at least to start with, but not when wearing Orange
Doctor Death (as the survival suits are affectionately called, named for the way they hang in
the rig's wardrobe, like a scary person staring at you, or as if a fellow rigger had hanged
themselves!). It was a bizarre scene - as the helicopter took off from Bergen, it appeared to
be filled to capacity with a gang of Tellytubbies. Hot, bothered, sweating Tellytubbies. However,
after about 20 minutes, we reached the rig, literally in the middle of nowhere. The only things
the eye could see were more rigs on the horizon, and the odd lost seagull battling against the
North Sea winds.
After peeling Orange Doctor Death off our backs, we slipped into something a little more
comfortable: Guantanamo Bay-style orange jumpsuits. Nice. Dressed like prisoners, we ate a
delicious lunch of the finest seafood - and meatballs - imaginable, although my thoughts were
filled with concern that I'd never get Dr Death zipped up if I ate too much. I probably also
drank too much fizzy soda, given that I was about to travel 303 m (1,000 ft) to the seabed.
When time came to hit the depths, I was ushered into a tiny cage-like chain-driven elevator,
which took about 8 or 9 minutes to reach the seabed. It rattled its way down like the express
elevator to hell, and crashed noisily to the ground at the end of its chain. The gig was to be
performed in one of the rig's legs, which were set into about 60 m (200 ft) of seabed. I had a
good chat with the man who built the rig and confirmed the depth to be 303 m (994 ft) below sea
level - the deepest at which any concert had taken place, as far as Guinness World Records is
concerned.
It was an incredible experience; you could look up from the concrete floor and see for about
100 m (330 ft). The hollow leg - with just its metre-thick walls to keep the North Sea at bay -
had lately acquired its own ecosystem thanks to the increased numbers of bodies down there
(a maximum of 40 at any one time, half of whom would have to make the 20-minute climb up the
stairs in an emergency!) and all 300 tonnes of lighting and camera equipment that had been taken
down over the past week; all around the leg, showers of condensed sweat and breath rained down
on us. And a single hand-clap rang out for 20 seconds, so you could imagine the nightmares the
sound engineer had balancing the sound. It was like a massive gothic cathedral, like something
dank and muculent only Anne Rice could have dreamt up for beneath the streets of Paris. This,
then filled with the risk of gas explosions. It was truly awe-inspiring and, if you thought about
it too much, terrifying.
Tickets had been issued to rig workers via a lottery system, so that it could be officially
classed a concert, as per GWR rules, and Katie ended up performing the same concert twice. The
riggers jigged as Katie gigged, the sounds of her music and their claps and cheers ricocheting up
the leg. It was a fantastic thing to witness, and Katie was as delightful to speak with as she
was to listen to. "This is the most surreal experience of my life," she said gamely after
receiving her Guinness World Records certificate. "I wonder what the fish must have thought
as they swam by!" I had to agree - to borrow one of Katie's own lyrics, this was probably the
closest thing to crazy I had ever seen... and I've seen a lot of crazy in my time.
Craig Glenday
11 October 2006