Boston Air Guitar Blog

Last year, the US Air Guitar Boston Qualifier was held at Radio, a bar and live-music venue in Somerville, Massachusetts. Radio had a history of giving new and local bands a place to play, and as Captain Airhab, the organizer of the qualifier, was in a band that had played there a few times, he had a bit of a history to draw on with the management when trying to book the qualifier.

At the US Air Guitar National Finals in LA in August, a new tradition was kicked off: an awards ceremony, for various accomplishments in the field. The full list of awards has now been posted on the US Air Guitar website - read it here!

Last time, I talked about this year's big format changes to US Air Guitar competitions and what that might mean for next year. This time, I'd like to talk about... everything else. What to look for in competition, trends I saw emerging, and of course, the future.

The 2013 Air Guitar season has ended, and we are all (mostly) recovered. What better time, then, to reflect on the season that was? There were some big changes this year, and they affected the way the competitions shook out. Some of those changes are even going to affect next year's competitions. What is next year going to be like? And how did this year's performances set the tone for next time around?

You might be reading that title and thinking "wait, you went to Finland?" No... but it isn't a second-hand recap because I watched the whole thing live online. Now that that's out of the way, let's dive in!

The Air Guitar World Championships have their own Dark Horse competition, just like US Air Guitar's Dark Horse. Well, not just like it. For one thing, there's no second round! It's just scores from the first round, and that's that. Also, just like in the actual world championship judging, there are 5 judges rather than 3, and the high and low scores are discarded. This Dark Horse is not an invitational, like the US one is, but rather a walk-on convention.

Well, folks, that's another US air guitar season in the books. All the qualifiers, the semi-finals, the Dark Horse, and even the annual karaoke night have come and gone. And the culminating event of all of this took place on Saturday night at the House of Blues in LA: the 2013 US Air Guitar National Finals. Now that it's all said and done, a winner has been crowned (or belted) and will be competing in the Air Guitar World Championships in Oulu, Finland this coming weekend, and my voice is entirely lost. Good thing this blog is a text blog and not a video one, then, because even though I sound like a wheezing, squeaking, un-oiled machine, I can still tell you what went down.

Thursday night was the US Air Guitar Dark Horse competition, and I promised to live-tweet it, and I let you down. I tried to tweet, I promise! No one's phone got any service in the bar - but I took notes the whole time, so here you go.

Thursday night in LA, at a bar called Bar 107, the US Air Guitar Dark Horse competition will be contested. Today, I'm going to run over exactly what the Dark Horse is, for the newbies among us, who's in it this year, and why it is amazing. You're going to get so amped that you won't be able to sleep tonight... and you're going to hope that Nationals are in your city next year so the Dark Horse can be there too.

As you likely know, the US Air Guitar National Finals are taking place in Los Angeles this weekend, preceded on Thursday by the Dark Horse competition, and your faithful correspondent will be there, along with an array of Boston air guitarists who will be playing in one of those two competitions (or both, if all goes well). You'll be seeing Danny Tanner Tantrum and Rockupine competing on the national stage, and Captain Airhab on the Dark Horse stage and, if that goes well, nationals as well. If you want to give Jean-Luc Pickguard Boston air guitarist status (even though he's from Brooklyn) since that's where he earned his semi-final berth, and that performance would have been enough to get him to Dark Horse even if it hadn't taken him through to the semis... well, by all means, add one to our tally. The Marquis was also a Boston competitor - he just secured his semi-final spot before the Boston qualifier came around - and he'll be competing in the national finals himself.