Last night at the Khyber, 18 rock-god wannabes gathered to shred and power slide their way to rock immortality in the 2009 US Air Guitar Regional Championship competition.
The show got a late start, but it probably only helped that everyone – audience and performers – had a chance to get a few more drinks in them. The event was officially and appropriately sponsored by Boones Farm, after all. Entire bottles were just $5.50 at the bar.
The 2008 World champion, Hot Lixx Hulahan, hosted the event. He and US Air Guitar veteran Björn Türoque (who doubled as a judge) started the show with some professional air guitar shredding to what seemed to be the Official Air Guitar theme song -- a Flamenco tune-turned heavy rock song, backed by Boones Farm girls on air bass and air drums.
Contestants had “60 seconds to melt your faces or shit in a pizza box.” The performances were then scored by three judges on a scale of 4.0 to 6.0, just like Olympic figure skating, in the following categories: Technical merit, stage presence, and “airness,” which is, “like porn; it’s tough to define, but you know it when you see it,” according to one of the judges.
The competition was broken into two rounds. In the first round, every registered performer had one minute to shred to a song of his (no girls last night) choosing. In the second round, only the top-five scoring players advanced and had to all jam out to the same song.
