Digging deep down to find the air guitar in their hearts

By Jordan Sargent

Published Feb. 2, 2007

I can't say that I have ever been to The Blue Note more than twice before I went to see grown men play invisible instruments at the Ultimate Air Guitar Contest, but I'd venture to say that never has the Note ever seen as many rock hands as it saw on Thursday night.

If the rock hand was the symbol of the night, (crowd members looked like satanic versions of the iconic Richard Nixon pose) then "rocking" was the modus operandi. With no actual instruments to play, ultimate rocking was achieved via what the contest's judges coined "showmanship." Each contestant interpreted this in different ways: windmills, scissor kicks, knee slides and my personal favorite, the stage jump. It all sounded extremely silly to me, but these guys were having too much fun for it not to be contagious.

Contestant Joshua Howard, by far the show's most prepared participant, ripped the knee of his pink tights upon landing a mid-air split. If any Rolling Stone would head bang as hard as 50-year-old Boz Lanning did, his neck would snap. Avril Lavigne could learn a hell of a lot about actually being a punk from 11-year-old lone female entrant and overwhelming crowd favorite, Brittany Sexton-Lyons.

As entertaining as it was seeing grown men doing splits in the air, "showmanship" alone wasn't enough to bag the contest's first prize of an actual guitar, Guitar Hero II and more. The judges were looking for technical proficiency. Though the precedent of how to play air hasn't been set, no one mistook these guys and gal for the next Slash or even the next Kurt Cobain. The consensus was that "playing" the air guitar takes a certain amount of talent.

"There's always a talent in getting in front of people, that's always tough," said judge and KCMQ 96.7 DJ Mason Neff. "It takes stage presence and replication of the guitar and facial expressions to wow the crowd."

"Wowing" the crowd seemed the main goal of the contestants, a sentiment echoed by emcee Tom Bradley.

"Air guitar is a little bit different (from playing an actual guitar), but it gives people the feeling of being a rock star," he said. "Ninety percent of what a 'rock star' does on stage is antics and a competition like this is brings out that 90 percent."

The competition's first round saw each player miming a minute or so of a chosen song. Song choices included classic rock staples such as Reverend Horton Heat's "I Can't Surf" and Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" and rip offs of classic rock staples such as Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" and the Raconteurs' "Store Bought Bones."

For some, including the show's elder statesman Lanning, picking the right song was a painstaking process.

"I went through my collection of 200 albums to pick my song," he said. "I spent 20 hours listening to it."

Though to these eyes, the best acts played off the crowd and their own improvisations, eventual winner David Aulgur did his air guitar homework.

"I watched video," he said. "I studied chords. I watched other air guitar acts to get ideas, and I dug down deep and found the air guitar in my heart."

Contestant Bryan Butler, who had shaved the words "rock 'n' roll" into his head for the competition, didn't practice for the air guitar competition. For him, it's a way of life.

"I practice every time in the car," he said. "I'd call it a passion more than a profession. Accounting to pay, air guitar to live."

The night peaked when 14-year-old and eventual second-runner-up Brian Grimsley, with hair glued to his chest, air humped the show's lone female judge. We had seen grown men in wigs and tights, a man in just black spandex and one with purple streamers attached to his gloves, but nothing prepared us for that.

Above all, the event was a night of intense catharsis dressed up in spandex and drenched in beer.

"One of the hidden things that make people enjoy rock shows is saying 'Wow, I want to be up there,' and that's what it is about this show that makes people enjoy it so much," Bradley said.

Every performer I spoke to gushed about the high they felt performing on The Blue Note's stage, in front of a rather raucous crowd.

"It's the biggest rush you'll ever get," Aulgur said. "Nothing will ever compare to the crowd going crazy because of what you did on the air guitar."

At the end of the night, Aulgur was crowned champion, but it was judge Alex Hilderbrand that summed up the contest's overall feeling.

"You go to live acts and some bands don't bring the showmanship that these guys bring," he said. "I've had more fun tonight than at 50 percent of the shows I've seen in this town."