Mozart's famous symphonic theme in G minor played on bottles with rollerblade extensions

September 4, 2006 10:06 PM

The opening theme of Mozart's symphony in G minor, K. 550 - on rollerblades and downhill.
posted by persona non grata (38 comments total)

Highly enjoyable. Thanks!
posted by chudmonkey at 10:25 PM on September 4, 2006

ok, so now THAT's the most awesome video I've seen on YouTube. At this rate, I will have to have a new ceiling put in to accomodate my ever rising Awesomometer.
posted by jonson at 10:31 PM on September 4, 2006

I don't know, the concept is amusing, but that guy looks terrible on his rollerblades, like he just learned how to sorta rollerskate recently. I lost interest after the first few bottle passes and him trying to get more speed nervously. meh.
posted by mathowie at 10:35 PM on September 4, 2006

You lost interest? The clip is 40 second long.

I liked it.
posted by bob sarabia at 10:38 PM on September 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

seconds
posted by bob sarabia at 10:38 PM on September 4, 2006

I have a cousin that did that once... jk
posted by sawthesign at 10:40 PM on September 4, 2006

Good stuff, thanks!
posted by cgc373 at 10:41 PM on September 4, 2006

I dunno, I thought this was highly enjoyable. He's not going faster because it'd screw up the tempo of the song - he needs to control his speed pretty delicately. I don't think there's any nervousness about it.
posted by wanderingmind at 11:00 PM on September 4, 2006

How fitting that he "played" Mozart, who composed probably the best known music for the armonica. (Even better if he were wearing granny glasses, though.)
posted by rob511 at 11:01 PM on September 4, 2006

You wouldn't make a good music student, Matt.
posted by persona non grata at 11:01 PM on September 4, 2006

how letterman loses to leno is beyond me

that was awesome. thank you.
posted by tsarfan at 11:19 PM on September 4, 2006

Double?
posted by pracowity at 11:31 PM on September 4, 2006

This is quite possibly the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:38 PM on September 4, 2006

i now risk life and posthumous reputation on behalf of the silent majority, those cowed into submission by peer pressure, the huddled masses - we will not be silenced!

that was pretty dumb.
posted by facetious at 11:53 PM on September 4, 2006

that was pretty cool. all it needs to be awesome is some danger. put it on a cliff, or over a shark tank, have him juggle knives---just put his life at risk a little and then do the bottle Mozart rollerblade thing.
posted by carsonb at 12:00 AM on September 5, 2006

oh, hey, facetious, why did you fave ever comment in the mushroom thread? just wondering.
posted by carsonb at 12:02 AM on September 5, 2006

post
posted by defmute at 12:03 AM on September 5, 2006

...by which i mean, who is this guy and where did he come from and how did he get new york city to block off a street for him?
posted by defmute at 12:04 AM on September 5, 2006

carbonb:

huh?
posted by facetious at 12:08 AM on September 5, 2006

why did you fave every comment in the portobello mushroom thread?
posted by carsonb at 12:12 AM on September 5, 2006

carbonb:

*scratches head*. *scratches beard*. mushroom thread - check. comment - check. fave ever - hm. Nope.

*wonders if accidentally misspelling carbsonb twice is some sort of sympathetic reaction*
posted by facetious at 12:13 AM on September 5, 2006

ooooooh. *gets it*. that is interesting, i didn't know i did that. i certainly didn't mean to.
posted by facetious at 12:14 AM on September 5, 2006

facetious: right on. it was all the buzz for a bit over at MetaTalk. some people--certainly nobody civilised *cough*--keep an eagle eye on their favorited comments and noticed a bump from whatever happened with you and the mushroom thread. they were wondering what was up. (I was curious, too.) without an answer all day it turned into a bit of a romp.
posted by carsonb at 12:39 AM on September 5, 2006

ok, anyway, glad we got that cleared up. back to rollerblades and YouTube, sorry to interrupt!

...by which i mean, who is this guy and where did he come from and how did he get new york city to block off a street for him?

haven't seen a late night variety show in a while so I couldn't be sure, but my guess is Letterman.
posted by carsonb at 12:42 AM on September 5, 2006

my guess is letterman too since his studio is right next to Roseland which you can see in the video
posted by tsarfan at 12:50 AM on September 5, 2006

That was actually pretty awesome, and I'm impressed he was able to control the tempo as much as he did.
posted by eriko at 5:19 AM on September 5, 2006

CBC News:

New York, N.Y.: Rollerblading means strapping on the blades, and playing some tunes with your feet? St-Adele's Michel Lauzière does just that. His specialty? Mozart. It's music to his ears and to David Letterman! Michel went to showcase his talent at the Late Show on Thursday evening, by arranging perfectly spaced bottles and hitting them with special sticks attached to his rollerblades. This comic managed to rollerblade his way to just the right note. Literally.

His site:

Michel Lauzière is a man of many talents. He is a visual humorist, a fantasy artist, a musician and above all, he is a creative performer who gains personal satisfaction in capturing his public's affection.

On stage, Lauzière is a master in grasping the audience's attention and drawing them into his world of the unusual. With his incredible talent and imagination, he can make music out of anyting.

posted by pracowity at 5:27 AM on September 5, 2006

That was awesone. Must have taken quite a bit of setup work.
posted by bap98189 at 5:44 AM on September 5, 2006

No kidding. Not to mention a bit of drinking!
posted by persona non grata at 6:27 AM on September 5, 2006

This is both awesome AND dumb.

These two qualities are not exclusive.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 6:33 AM on September 5, 2006

Not much to add but "Bravo!". Just for imagining the idea, but following through? I think its great.
posted by doozer_ex_machina at 7:07 AM on September 5, 2006

facetious, I'm guessing you have/had some type of speed-up-your-web-surfing type thing which fetches anything linked from the page you're reading? Such a program would grab all the linked +favorite URLs and in the process mark all those comments as favorites.

The moral for mathowie? GETs should not have side effects.
posted by Khalad at 7:10 AM on September 5, 2006

cute
posted by Vindaloo at 7:21 AM on September 5, 2006

Oh that's great.
posted by Inetdave at 7:39 AM on September 5, 2006

Goddam clever. Joy!

This from someone who built a two-octave beer/wine bottle panflute set this weekend. I might be biased.
posted by cortex at 7:56 AM on September 5, 2006

Wow that is hella novel. When do they make the movie?
posted by ddf at 8:37 AM on September 5, 2006

As for how they got the street closed, I used to work next door to Letterman's studio and they often had either 51st or 52nd closed for events they were staging for the show.

Best of those I witnessed over the years: Mujibur and Sirajul racing zambonis down 52nd Street and the day they dropped several thousand Superballs off the top of the Ed Sullivan theater (I still have a half dozen of them at home).
posted by JaredSeth at 10:10 AM on September 5, 2006

that was pretty cool. all it needs to be awesome is some danger. put it on a cliff, or over a shark tank, have him juggle knives---just put his life at risk a little and then do the bottle Mozart rollerblade thing.

So, juggling running chainsaws and using nitroglycerine instead of water in the bottles. Plus the sharks and the cliff.

And do that in Bagdad drapped in an American flag.

(That was pretty cool, BTW.)
posted by NewBornHippy at 3:59 AM on September 7, 2006