Day 2 (which I think is actually Day 3)
After a solid 2 hours of sleep I am ready for High Altitude Air Guitar Boot Camp (funny, since Oulu is at sea level). Held somewhere in the woods of Oulu the boot camp is a retreat for newly arriving air guitarists, air guitar alumni, air guitar organizers, and press. The day is spent running through workshops on How To Maintain Your Instrument, lectures on Zen And The Art Of Air Guitar, group air guitar stretching regimens, and we finish it all off with a bunch of alcohol and a trip into the sauna. I say this with the utmost sincerity – I left Boot Camp the following morning a changed man. I wanted to yell from the highest mountain how proud I was to be an air guitarist. I wanted face all who laughed at the thought of a worldwide air guitaring community and sing to them its praises. I wanted to gather up all the contestants, put em all on a flatbed truck, and parade through the streets air guitaring to My Sharona.
Here is where I may start to lose some of you.
I understand that air guitar seems like a joke. Trust me, I entered the first contest largely because of it’s absurdity. In fact, nobody I’ve met (in all the months and months I’ve been of doing this, ha ha) seems to have taken air guitaring too seriously. But, but, if you spend enough time immersed in anything it has a tendency to take on a much more tangible existence.
Eleven years ago two guys in Oulu held an air guitar contest as a joke. Their band produced a fake news reel stating their country had split into two nations and that they were trying to build an Air Guitar Force to help invade southern Finland in an attempt to free their drummer. And their underlying message was this: if everyone played air guitar no one would be able to hold a gun and, thus, world peace could be attained. It's equal parts lofty and goofy but within three years this annual joke become an international juggernaut.
You’re probably thinking, “One day I’ll start a contest whereby everyone will sit and laugh at their own farts, also in the name of world peace.” And you know what, you knuckledragging neighsayer? When thousands of people from around the world show up to be part of your party, and when the international press covers it with a fervor of a sports broadcast, and when everyone involved is having the time of their lives, you won’t think it’s so absurd anymore either.
Day 4
Yann and Nicolas (French documentarians also doing a film on air guitar) and I meet up with The Destroyer and Christel to shoot an interview/performance for Finnish television.
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| Rocking before noon is awkward enough but to do it in front of a blue screen to a song we’d only just heard for the first time was just plain weird. (What's worse is when I got home I found out the piece was aired online before, during, and after the main event. Many people back home logged on and saw only the clip from this tv show and thought that was the contest. “It didn’t seem like there were very many people there.” If they only knew…) |
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After
the blue screen effects. This is the group jam that took
place after all the interviews and
individual
performances.
Clockwise
from left: Yann, Pirjo, Christel, Nicolas, me, and my nemesis/best
bud The Destroyer. For the record, I am playing leg-guitar on
The Destroyer, not trying to sabotage his performance
by biting his leg off. |
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"Profession: Air Guitarist" -
ha! |
The competition was held in tandom with the Oulu Music Video Festival (or Oulunmusiikkivideofestivaalit). In addition to the competition there was a weeklong film fest (all films having to do with music) as well as a music video awards gala the night after the competition. This afternoon I saw Air Guitar Nation and loudQUIETloud, a documentary about the Pixies reformation tour.
Afterwards, Olli Rantala, the only person associated with Air Guitar who always (or ever) wears a suit, invited about 40 people from 15 different countries to dinner at an Indian restaurant, his treat. I apologized to him again for saying I would come to Finland and slay people. Furthermore, I explained, the bulk of my experience in Finland and with Finns has involved a lot of drunk, nude, knife-wielding so I thought I was gonna be in like company when I made the comment. He then said he was glad I was here because the other guy in New York who almost won was “a little too crazy.” After explaining to us who the crazy guy was we realized he was actually thinking of me.
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| This is the always well-dressed Olli. I got him to stay up late enough for one round of Aireoke even though he is a new father. Congrats to him! And a huge thanks as well. |
The main event features the champions from about 15 different countries, give or take a couple depending on the year. But the evening prior always hosts “The Dark Horse Round.” Held in a smaller club, anyone is invited to enter and the top scorers are then invited to participate in the main event. Tonight three Japanese and this year’s only woman all qualified for Friday’s event.
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| If you look real close you can see an older man with fake boobs wearing a leather bikini and a cat of nine tails. I don't remember the song he performed but I do remember it stopping in the middle and a voice cutting through the speakers saying, "I'll fuck anything that moves." |
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| After the Dark Horse competition a local band called Superchrist played a Plaid Retina-type spacerock fusion. |
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| And their guitar player had a lot of effects. |
And then it was time for some super-charged Aireoke!
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Alexandra
stepping out from the camera. |
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| One of the speakers at the camp was a guy named Milton. He explained how in past societies music was used as part of the healing process. It was figured out that certain scales and modes could aid certain afllictions. But then science came along and explained, biologically, what was causing sicknesses and eventually the healing power of music went the way of the buffalo. A couple years ago Milton went out on a Friday night and came home feeling slightly ill. Monday morning he was hospitalized and diagnosed with leukemia. Some very rough times awaited him but now, two years later, he’s made an almost full recovery. He attributes his miraculous recovery almost exclusively to music. This is him air guitaring to Rage Against The Machine, a song he says was key to his visualizing the destruction of his cancer. Check out his story. |
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| Clay Banger, the Aussie competitor. One-time clown for the Russian circus Clay has broken four bones while participating in air guitar competitions. Clay is Aussie to the core and I'd say any night ending with fucking and/or fighting would be fine with him. |
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| Clay being the Bruce Dickenson to The Destroyer and I's Iron Maiden dueling solos. |