I'm not sure I'm fully recovered. Boston's US Air Guitar Qualifier took place on Saturday, and the evening was a great success. Sure, there were only 9 competitors (including walk-ons), and that was a bit of a concern, but it all went off successfully. Let's talk about it!
The host and MC for the evening, Captain Airhab, kicked it off with a 4-minute intro. 4 minutes is a lot longer than 1 minute, it turns out. All of the songs he picked as part of his intro fulfilled Eddie Spaghetti's maxim of "rock 'n' roll songs, about rock 'n' roll, with rock 'n' roll right in the title."
The judges included Barry Tattle, who once again made the trip up from Bermuda by moped; President Baberham Lincoln (traveling all this way from Philly) as the air-guitarist judge, and new judge Allix Mortis. But she wasn't green and untried entirely - she used to work with Windhammer and knew a thing or two about judging pretend guitar competitions.
And now, on to the competitors. First up we had the mysterious and tinfoil-wrapped Mr. Science. Despite being mocked as looking like Jiffy Pop or a baked potato (and thereby making us all hungry), he shredded not just the air but also his costume. The rumors that he looked suspiciously like another air guitarist competing that night were, no doubt, unfounded.
We were also joined by Warpath, who had competed in another air guitar competition before, and who took us all to the gun show. He just heard it was happening and drove over from upstate New York! That is dedication and I love it.
You may recall that last year, Operation Rockapussy appeared as The Ghost of Operation Rockapussy. There was a lot of baby powder. Well, this year, the ghost has become the Dark Ghost of Operation Rockapussy. I'm not sure how that works either - do ghosts turn dark after a while? - but anyway this year it was glitter and not baby powder. And you know what else there was? The first 6.0 of the night. The judges weren't acting crazy - he deserved every bit of it.
A brand new air guitarist - he had never even been to a competition before, let alone participated - was the festively bearded Satan Claus. A member of the Boston Beard Bureau, he was encouraged to come by a fellow beardsman who sadly couldn't make it himself. Satan Claus started out practicing some "chair guitar" a la Andres SegoviAIR, but stood up and finished the song on his feet. He'll be back next year!
Your humble correspondent also performed; I was rewarded with the whole crowd singing happy birthday to me afterwards (it was, in fact, my birthday, and Airhab saw fit to point it out).
Never mind that - Danny Tanner Tantrum, now just going by DTT, was channelling Peter "Stiff" Dickens a little bit, with some mouthing along with his own voice in his edit. I don't think everyone should start doing it - it wouldn't be groundbreaking and cool anymore - but I love seeing a little bit of it cropping up in places outside of PSD's orbit. Most of the people in the crowd, after all, had never been to another city's air guitar competition, and most probably never will. Deservedly, he received the second 6.0 of the night.
Boston stalwart Filthy Fingers started out bringing culture to the masses, wearing academic robes and delicately plucking out his tune - then threw the robe to the ground, revealing his regular garb and getting down to rock business.
Our one walk-on, Captain InZaino, couldn't have known that he was not the first to do the air coke snort - that's Sonic Bitch territory - but honestly more people could stand to emulate her.
Rockupine
photo by Byrd McDaniel on Instagram
Wrapping up round 1 was last year's victor, Rockupine. This year, he didn't coat his face in disco ball; he just put a bunch of glitter on himself and proceeded to kick ass. He got 5.8s and a 5.9, which I thought there should have been a 6.0 in there somewhere but it's not up to me.
So, your second round: Filthy Fingers, Canadian Bacon, The Dark Ghost of Operation Rockapussy, Rockupine, and in first place, DTT.
The second round song was an edit of the Beastie Boys classic "Fight for Your Right" and I have to say, everyone seemed to expect it to end a little later than it did. But that didn't seem to hurt anyone's scores - the order was basically preserved at the end of the second round except that Filthy Fingers and I switched places, him climbing to 4th and me dropping down to 5th. But the top 3 remained the top 3: DTT in first, Rockupine second, and Dark Ghost of Operation Rockapussy in third.
All 3 of them will be going on to the Northeast Semifinal on July 1 in New York, as will Airhab. I'll tag along as your faithful correspondent and tell you everything... unless, of course, you feel like coming too! If so, you can get tickets here.