There’s underground music, and then there’s deep underground music.

A band from Timmins called Miners and Sons now holds the Guinness World Record for deepest underground concert.

The band performed at the 9,000-foot level of the Kidd Mine in Timmins, located approximately 2,700 meters underground. This is equivalent to about five NC towers stacked on top of each other.

Band member Sean Harris said he was exhausted shortly after hitting the record.

“It’s hot there,” he said.

Harris said it took two years of planning to make the record attempt a reality. This involved working closely with the Glencore company, which operates the mine, and arranging for a Guinness adjudicator to witness the underground filming.

“The rule was you had to play at least 15 minutes, there couldn’t be more than 30 seconds between songs, the songs had to be at least two minutes long and had to be recognizable,” he said.

They performed in front of a crowd of about 30 people, including mine employees and managers, local politicians and staff from Northern College, which helped sponsor the effort.

Harris said they played songs by Collective Soul, The Tragically Hip, Rage Against the Machine and Johnny Cash.

Harris said he was still in shock that he and his bandmates now had their names engraved on the Guinness Book of World Records.

A Sudbury band called The Shaft Bottom Boys set the previous record for deepest underground concert. In 2020, they traveled 1,893.8 meters, or about 6,200 feet, underground in Vale’s Creighton Mine.

Shaft Bottom Boys member John Shelegey sent his congratulations to Miners and Sons.

“It has to be well planned, well organized and well supported,” he said.

“So first of all I would like to congratulate them.”

Shelegey said he was a little disappointed to lose the record, but he’s happy it remains in northern Ontario.

He added that he hopes Miners and Sons can continue his group’s tradition as ambassadors for the mining industry and use its record attention to raise money for local charities.

Shelegey suggested that friendly competition between the two groups could push the Shaft Bottom Boys to try to go further than their previous record.