Boston Air Guitar Blog

As of Saturday night, the road to the US Air Guitar National Finals is clear: the last semi-final, the Western one, took place in San Francisco. The roster for Finals competitors is now set, other than Dark Horse competitors who will be decided a couple days before the final... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about what went down in San Francisco on Saturday.

Can we just get this out on the table? I am so jealous of everyone who was in Chicago for the Midwest US Air Guitar Semi-Finals on Saturday. I was out with friends, having what any reasonable person would think was a good time, and I was all discombobulated and cranky, and I'm going to chalk that up to wishing I was in Chicago, rather than the fact that I was forced to play pool.

Well, that's it - the last US Air Guitar Qualifier of 2013 is in the books. Santa Cruz wrapped up that portion of the season for us last night at The Blue Lagoon. Hosted by veteran Dirty Airy, this qualifier was closer to a classic regional than some of this year's qualifiers (no hat-o-doom, no battle royales) but did shake things up a bit by adding an automatic simultaneous air-off round to pick the second-place winner. The judging panel was also a bit of a new thing in that opposite to the DC US Air Guitar Semi-Final that just took place, with its all-competitor judging panel, Santa Cruz had a non-competitor judging panel! From the sound of things, though, that was not a handicap for them, and the contestants had a solid, consistent set of scores to contend with.

The second US Air Guitar Semi-Final of 2013 is in the books, ladies and gentlemen, and boy do I wish I had been there. DC isn't that far from Boston, right?

Los Angeles had a lot to live up to with their qualifier, which took place on Saturday. Not only are they the entertainment capital in the first place, but that is also where the US Air Guitar National Finals will be taking place on August 17th (get your tickets now!). So they can't half-ass their qualifier.

Since I'm so behind on the last 3 US Air Guitar Qualifiers (specifically San Diego, Portland, and Denver), I'm just going to roll them all up into one post. I know, I know, my SEO is crying buckets of tears since this makes one post instead of 3. I'll live.

Tuesday night was the NYC (Eastern) US Air Guitar Semi-Finals! This will be an in-person recap, since a big Boston air guitar contingent made the drive down, including your faithful correspondent, and despite some of our bodies being a little the worse for wear this morning, it was an excellent evening and a huge success all around.

Also on Friday night, the St. Louis US Air Guitar Qualifier went off. It was sibling rivalry night in air guitar for sure, because as well as Dry Ice's sister winning Houston (and therefore bringing the two of them into direct competition at the Midwest Semi-Final in Chicago), you had Kansas City's Stack siblings, Stack Attack and Stack Hammer, descending upon an unsuspecting St. Louis, as well as Mean Melin's sister Crystal Richter (who would only wind up facing him down if they meet in the national finals, since St. Louis feeds into Chicago's semi-finals, but he'll be competing in the NYC semi-finals).

By which I mean that yours truly is going to the Northeast US Air Guitar Semi-Finals in NYC, taking place tomorrow night, but also that several Boston air guitarists of renown and infamy (ok, maybe not infamy) are going down as well, so Boston is going to be well represented.

There are two primary things you need to know about Houston's US Air Guitar Qualifier, which took place on Friday. First, Air Bear is a party animal in a very literal sense, and second, there's a new air guitar dynasty brewing.