Yearning for rock stardom? Even without musical talent, you can experience the rush and the glory of being on stage in front of a wild, cheering audience. Just pick up the one instrument that anyone can play anytime, anywhere — the air guitar.
No longer confined to the bedroom, where rock fans might have put on their favorite Cream record and pretended to be Eric Clapton, air guitar has become both a stage art and worldwide phenomenon.
Air guitarists have been congregating annually in Finland since 1996 for a world championship that boasts participation from countries like Australia, Japan, Kenya, Russia, the US, and now Taiwan.
The first annual Taiwan Air Guitar Championships, which had its first round two weeks ago in Kaohsiung, concludes tonight at Carnegie’s in Taipei.
The winner receives a round-trip plane ticket to Oulu, Finland, to represent Taiwan in the world championship.
The Taiwan competition was born out of a late-night, drunken conversation between two expat friends, Bill Allen of the US and Todd MacMillan of Canada. MacMillan had just seen Air Guitar Nation, the 2006 film that followed two American contestants to the world championship.
“One of our first thoughts was: can we enter Taiwan in a world organization as Taiwan?” said MacMillan.
“Not that [Chinese] Taipei bullshit,” said Allen.
It turned out to be easy, the two said, after contacting the championship organizers in Finland.
All they had to do was hold a national competition according to prescribed rules: contestants must play an “invisible” instrument on stage, and compete in two rounds, each lasting 60 seconds.
In one round, contestants play along to a song of their own choosing; in the other round, a “compulsory song” is chosen for the contestants, who hear it only just before the competition.
The more Allen and MacMillan learned about “Air Guitar ideology,” the more they knew they wanted to hold the contest.
“Their manifesto says the idea is, if everybody’s holding an air guitar, you can’t hold a rifle. So it’s all for world peace,” said Allen.
Everything else will be hunky-dory, too, according to the manifesto: “… all bad things disappear from the world and the climate change stops if everybody plays the Air Guitar.”
The pair managed to get Nokia Taiwan to sponsor the winner’s plane ticket to the championship, thanks to help from Finland’s trade office in Taipei, Finpro Taiwan, which Allen said was “pumped” about the idea.
At its worst, an air guitar performance is cheesy and embarrassing. At best, it’s still cheesy and embarrassing, but fun to watch as the participants go to great lengths to inspire a crowd as if they were really at a rock show.
A search on YouTube easily leads to renowned air guitarists like Craig “Hot Lixx Hulahan” Billmeier of the US — the current reigning world champion — and Ochi “Dainoji” Yosuke of Japan.
Yosuke, who was the world champion in 2006 and 2007, is a good example of how an air guitarist can play out the rock ’n’ roll fantasy to the extreme.
At the 2007 world championships, he got into character by mimicking a rock guitarist warming up before a show. He adjusted the knobs on his amp (which surely went up to 11) and gave instructions to imaginary roadies standing on the side of the stage, eliciting laughter from the crowd.
As soon as the song started (The Offspring’s Come Out and Play (Gotta Keep ’Em Separated)), the portly and nerdy-looking Yosuke transformed into a rock god with one leap into the air; he swung his arms and kicked his legs in perfect timing with the guitar riffs. The crowd clapped along and roared with approval.
Tonight’s contestants in Taipei compete in two rounds. As with all officially sanctioned air guitar contests, a panel of judges scores each performance on a scale of 4.0 to 6.0 (which contest organizers often note is the same system as Olympic Figure Skating).
The criteria listed on Air Guitar Taiwan Championship’s Web site are “originality, the ability to be taken over by the music, stage presence, technical merit, artistic impression and airness.”
Up to 20 air guitarists compete tonight to decide the Taipei finalist, who then immediately faces off with the finalist from Kaohsiung, Scott “Indie Mayhem” Weatherall. The winner of that contest becomes the national champion.
While it’s too late too register to compete for tonight’s contest, aspiring air guitarists might take heed of Weatherall’s advice on the “art.”
“The essence of air guitar is that you’re by yourself usually when you’re doing it. So when I get up on stage, the crowd reminds me that they’re there. But when I’m up there [on stage], you just gotta put yourself back in front of your mirror and that’s when you rock out the hardest,” he said.
Allen and MacMillan have advice of their own.
“Close your eyes and picture yourself in front of a million people and think about how you’d want to look and act, if you could be and do whatever you want. If you had one wish, and that was to be a rock star, what would that wish really be?” said Allen.
“Come to be a rock star,” said MacMillan.
The Kaohsiung Air Guitar Champ, Scott “Indie Mayhem” Weatherall has enjoyed a fast rise to air guitar stardom since he arrived in Taiwan seven months ago. After winning the Kaohsiung round of the first ever Air Guitar Taiwan Championship, the 26-year-old Canadian will be at Carnegie’s tonight, waiting to face off with the winner of the Taipei round. Here are some tidbits from a Taipei Times interview last week with “Indie Mayhem.”
Taipei Times: What was your winning song in Kaohsiung?
Scott “Indie Mayhem” Weatherall: I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness.
TT: Were you nervous at the Kaohsiung competition?
SIMW: I’m going to have to say no — I wasn’t nervous because ... I’m in the improv league here in Kaohsiung. So the last eight weeks, I’ve been performing on stage and making an ass of myself, so I was used to it at this point. I was more worried that the shorts I wear are really, really short — they’re cut off jeans — so I was really more worried about exposing myself. If I was nervous about anything, I guess it was that.
TT: Do you play a real instrument?
SIMW: No, but I can play air drums.
TT: What was the first song you “air-guitared” to?
SIMW: Ghostbusters (by Ray Parker Jr.)
TT: Who’s your favorite real guitarist?
SIMW: Angus Young (AC/DC)
TT: Why air guitar?
SIMW: It’s a performance piece. You can have it anywhere, you don’t need anything … if you’re on the street, if you’re in front of the classroom, if you’re on the bus, it doesn’t weigh anything. Travel with it all over the world. It can be acoustic, it can be whatever you want it to be.
TT: What’s your favorite move?
SIMW: I don’t want to give away my secret move. But I’m going to say that I really do enjoy the Angus [Young of AC/DC] — the trot across the stage on one foot while playing … I think of him when I’m doing it all the time.
TT: Describe the thrill of playing air guitar.
SIMW: I guess it would have to be like riding a sailboat, where you grab on and the wind just takes you, like the songs, and you go with it. You and the song become one and you just ride off, and it all works and you hit your marks when you hit your marks — it’s all worth it to hear the crowd when you get those big roars.
TT: What kind of guitar do you play?
SIMW: I play, uh, a Fender Stratocast [sic].
TT: Any plans for a Taiwan tour?
Hey, I’m always open to any opportunity that comes my way.
TT: Do you have a message for your competitor in Taipei?
SIMW: Good luck, and bring it — bring the rock, make me step up my game. I don’t want to feel like I just walked into it and got it, I want to feel like I earned it, so make me earn it, make me earn it.
(THIS INTERVIEW WAS EDITED AND CONDENSED)
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