When a major news publication like Newsweek writes an article calling your city “A Dying City”, what do you do? Well in the case of Grand Rapids Michigan, you fight back with a video, that is linked to both Facebook, and Twitter.

On May 22nd, the citizens of Grand Rapids joined forces with Rob Bliss Events and SEF Video to produce the worlds largest lip dub video performing a rendition of Don McLean’s “American Pie”. The video involved 5000 people, and temporarily shut down a major section of downtown Grand Rapids, which was filled with everything from guitar toting troubadours, to marching bands, weddings, and pillow fights.

The video was created to showcase the fact that the citizens of Grand Rapids, feel their city is filled with life, passion, energy, and is anything but “Dying” I have no idea, how successful this is going to be for Grand Rapids, but you have to give the city kudos for pulling out all the stops on this.