Pyrophone - Fire Organ

This is from the first night of The Sydney Festival 2009. We'd just got done watching Grace Jones in The Domain and were trying to make a quick getaway when we were astounded by this amazing instrument!

The thing is a Pyrophone (more specifically The Pyrophone Juggernaut), basically an organ played by directing fire into the pipes. As we arrived they were playing the upper pipes with a blowtorch, but I only thought to start filming for this percussive section.

Watch as my camera fails to handle the fireball finale!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophone

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Pyrophone
• Juggernaut
• fire
• organ
• explosion
• fireworks
• music
• Sydney
• Festival
• 2009
• Zebidee55

[HammerFloyd]

what sound is the pyrophone making? I can only hear the xylophone-type thing they're playing at the bottom

[zebidee55]

@HammerFloyd The sound that's like a horn starting at about one minute is part of it, but you're right, they don't play it a lot in this clip. It's sort of a bass noise, a bit like a church organ, but not as clear.

[TheRavenOfPoe]

hehe, this would have been quite a sight to behold in person! Glad you filmed it for us! Those crazy yet fun sydney festivals, hehe

[zebidee55]

Yes, the video can't give you an idea of the blast of heat from the last explosion!

Ah yes - they're all over for another year...

[jcmegabyte]

Interesting blast at the end - looks like it was pretty loud, too!

[zebidee55]

Yeah, it was quite loud, but the surprising thing was the heat from it, even standing at the back of the crowd. It must have been pretty severe up on stage!

[zebidee55]

This is all the footage I have of it, but I noticed a few other clips in the related videos. I think a YouTube search for pyrophone will turn up some decent stuff.

[zelkuta]

wow, that is beyond awesome. The whole thing is amazing. Are there any extended videos of this performance?

[zebidee55]

OK that had me laughing out loud! I really must upgrade my sense of humour from Kindergarten level...

Good luck with the glassesglasses.

[Yakovich]

Looked and sounded like someone lighting their farts to me... I wsih I cuold reemmber where I left my glassesglasses...