The Birthday I Played for More Than 25 Hours

Jams2blues (James Lee)

When my thirty-sixth birthday was over, I was still playing guitar.

A still from the birthday fundraiser livestream, February 2024.

I had started on February 20, 2024, and I kept going into February 21. Anna fed me every meal on camera and brought me water through a straw while I jammed from section to section. My hands were occupied, and she made sure I could eat and drink.

The fundraiser was for Stepping Stones Safe Haven, a Tennessee shelter serving women and children experiencing homelessness. I was performing as Jams2blues, using Streamlabs to send the broadcast out through my accounts on X, Instagram, Facebook and Twitch. People could watch me play and donate to the shelter.

I had worked toward this for a year, practicing hard every day to build the endurance. A whole year of getting ready, and then my birthday came and it was time to find out how far I could go.

I got permission from several YouTube backing-track artists to use their music in the stream. I had more than 170 tracks in different styles and keys: rock, pop and blues, flamenco, hip-hop, djent, fusion, hard rock, metal, speed metal, gypsy jazz and more. That was a lot of territory to cover with one guitar.

The backing tracks gave me something to play against, but I still had to improvise my way through them, changing with the keys and rhythms as I moved from section to section. I was there to play guitar, and I had given myself more than a day's worth of it.

Around hour eighteen, it became absolutely excruciating. My hands hurt, and so did my back, hips, elbow and wrist. My fingertips felt as if they were on fire. I was praying to be able to continue. I had trained for a year, and now I was inside the thing I had spent all that time preparing for, with hours still ahead of me.

Then, after hour twenty-two, something happened. It felt like a second wind, and I could power through to the end. Absolute shreddery. After how much it had hurt, being able to keep playing like that was a strange thing to experience.

My final count was twenty-five hours and fifteen minutes. The surviving recordings preserve more than twenty-five hours across three livestreams. The performance was never certified as a Guinness World Record.

Afterward, I slept for fourteen hours. The next day my hand was so swollen I could not make a fist, and my fingers were blistered. That second wind had carried me through the end of the playing; the aftermath was still waiting when I woke up.

Showing my fingertips to the camera at the end of the performance. A frame from the original livestream.

My fingertips a couple of days later, after the blisters had popped. I was already playing guitar again, though my hand was very sore and my tendons ached for weeks.

Stepping Stones received donations because of our stream. That is what matters to me. While I was playing, people were giving to a shelter for women and children. Music gave us a way to do that together.

I am a performer, a shredder and a songwriter, and the things I am willing to do for music and charity can be extreme. I love seeing how far I can go with the things I make for people. Sometimes that turns into a gift I can hand to one person. This time it turned into a birthday fundraiser that lasted into the next day.

Save The World With Art was the name of my business. I have since shut it down so I can spend more time with my family and children. It still lives in my heart. I still make donations and volunteer my time using the name.

Anna is my fellow songwriter, guitarist and co-lead voice in Quantaphoria. Dave Love is making music with us too. After what happened to my hand, I've decided to take it easier. I want to look after my hands so I can keep playing the music we make together.

I can still return to the recordings of that birthday and the twenty-five hours we spent on it. Anna is there bringing me water while I play. The help we were trying to give the shelter depended on that kind of help happening right beside me.

Watch the full performance

The three surviving livestreams, joined into one full-length video.