Dispatch from the U.S. Air Guitar Championships

By Justin Kendall in Entertainment, Follow That Story

Mon., Aug. 10 2009 @ 11:22AM

Erin Slattery

Eric "Mean" Melin fights for air-guitar supremacy at the U.S. Air Guitar Championships.

I couldn't make it to Washington, D.C., to follow Eric "Mean" Melin through the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, so we enlisted the help of a D.C. operative, Erin Slattery, former Kansas City blogger (Erin in the Real World) and current Washingtonian, for a special guest appearance on the Plog. Here's Erin's field report.

When Justin asked if I wanted to go to the U.S. Air Guitar Championships and report back for the Plog I was totally down. Mostly because:

It's sponsored by Boone's Farm and, wow. I thought Boone's Farm only sponsored underage drinking!
It's at the 9:30 Club, a famous D.C. venue that I have yet to visit -- due mostly to how popular it is. They bring in great acts and sell them out on a regular basis.
Free tickets and a photo pass. Actually, the photo pass was almost a reason not to go.
Air guitar contest = costumes and crazies. Love. It.

Even after reading up about the contest via the (shoddy) press materials and Justin's article on KC's own Mean Melin, I really had no clue what to expect. I packed up my super-professional reporter supplies: my CoolPix digital camera, Wonder Woman notepad and boyfriend. It was time for the press conference.

It's hard to explain the scene that we witnessed once the press conference got rolling (a half-hour or more late).

"Shit show" comes to mind.

There seemed to be about two legit reporters, about five photogs and videographers. Oh, yeah, and me and Mr. Perfect. Most of the seats were filled with people that were either friends of performers or were working the event. After a brief welcome from the evening's host Björn Türoque, current world champ Hot Lixx Hulahan and the co-commissioners, the 25 contestants introduced themselves and we met Air Bear, the official mascot.

Then the floor was open for questions.

Crickets.

Thank god there were 25 slightly insane attention whores in the room. The contestants, along with their friends/roadies, took over the press conference.

While Mr. Perfect shook with laughter, I dutifully took notes on my favorite characters.

Awesome, by far, was the most entertaining. Yes, his name is Awesome. He asked some of best questions of the night such as, "Can you acknowledge or deny there are free hot dogs here tonight?"

About five minutes later he came back to the mic (and off the stage where the rest of the contestants were) to try again, "I really don't want to press the issue ..."

Awesome

Yes, one of the sponsors was a hot dog maker. Yup. Boone's and wieners. Sounds like a good Friday night -- hey-oh!

Anywho, the co-commissioners calmed his wiener worries by explaining there were unlimited hot dogs in the green room.

And just in case you started to wonder what a co-commissioner of an air guitar contest does, don't worry, we got the answer. "We feed Air Bear in the off season."

Halfway through the next question, the conference is once again interrupted by Awesome yelling from the balcony outside the green room, " FALSE ALARM! No hot dogs in the green room!"

I tried to get some good photos at the press conference, but the lighting was just too much for my wee baby CoolPix. I did get a great shot of the sign for the ladies room though. It's ARIEL BITCHES!

After 20 minutes or so of awkward hilariousness, the press conference seemed to be wrapping up. Then an overweight guy wearing a jacket and underwear appeared at the microphone.

"This question is for Dirk Courage of Seattle," he started. After asking a quick question, he slowly walked towards the backstage door.

Laughter built as he entered stage left, walked up to the microphone set up on stage, and answered his own question.

I'm guessing this was one of the best press conferences, ever.

A red carpet was scheduled to start shortly after the press conference, but they were running more than a half-hour late and we were hungry, so we bailed. We finished up around 9 and quickly headed back to the 9:30 Club. And waited for another 40 minutes for the show to start.

And holy Jesus was it worth it.

After Björn and Hot Lixx got the crowd warmed up, it was time to rock and roll.

As the first contestant took the stage, we were joined by our roommate Josh. We started talking about the issues surrounding judging an event with 25 contestants where scores are revealed as you go. It's a tricky game. You don't want to judge too high or too low before you know what the competition is like. Being one of the first few competitors was basically a guaranteed low score.

Luckily for the judges, not so much the crowd, the first three competitors were uninspired. Not horrible, but really nothing too exciting.

Then things changed. The next three or so contestants started giving us a taste of what airness meant. We liked it. So did the judges, who threw around 5.8s (out of 6) like they were going out of style.

Too soon! Way too soon to start throwing around high scores!

Unfortunately for our hometown hero, Mean Melin, they seemed to try to correct the error of their ways right around the time he took the stage.

I spoke with Mean Melin earlier in the day. He knew he was a bit of an underdog due to his newcomer status, and the 24 other outrageously costumed and cocky contestants weren't calming any nerves.

"I'm intimidated by everything, but I'm confident in my act."

I was inspired by his hopeful words and couldn't wait to see the performance that I had already read about.

Finally, Melin took the stage. He looked nervous at first, but with each hit of air heroin, air cocaine or air pot his roadies gave him, he seemed to settle in. After an air-overdose, the roadies finally helped him put on his air-guitar.

It was time.

Melin's song began. He started winning the crowd over with his airness. And then it came, the moment I had been waiting for -- Melin threw his guitar in the air, was impaled by it, and was covered in stage blood.

He finished his act playing his guitar as he pulled it out of his chest, collapsing on the stage as the song ended.

I loved it.

There seemed to be two styles of air guitar. First, the true rockers. They had a solid rock and roll persona coupled with legit air guitar playing. I'd guess most of them have played real guitar. The other group were show boaters. Crowd pleasing, for sure, but spending your precious 60 seconds throwing beer, grabbing props and fake fighting camera men didn't always equal strong air-guitar style.

I liked Melin because he was like Hannah Montana up in that bitch. He was totally the best of both worlds. Melin had a strong rock look, was technically convincing, and threw in some good theatrics with the stage blood.

Unfortunately, someone must have passed a calculator to the judges' booth. They realized they were making it impossible for the next 10 or so contestants to have a chance at winning and sharply scaled back their scores.

Starting with our man Melin.

Judge Mike Wise from the Washington Post told Melin he was one of the best technical air guitarists, very convincing in style and it was clear he actually played guitar.

Then he gave him a shitty score.

As the low-balled scores rolled in, the crowd started to loudly protest. The crowd was told at the start of the night to feel free to disagree with the judges and pour beer on them.

Melin's scores were just the inspiration for that to happen.

But it wasn't just any old crowd member, it was someone in the VIP section with the judges.

And it wasn't just anyone, it was the promoter of the event.

Brilliant.

So Melin didn't move on. At the end of the day, wouldn't you rather have the entire audience protesting for you?

No.

That's bullshit.

You'd rather have a ticket to Finland to compete in the World Championships.

Even though the night was over for my Kansas City friend, we were just getting started.

There were some solid performances and some silly ones. One standout: Steve Lavendar. Lavendar took the stage wearing short cut-off jean shorts, a cropped neon green shirt that said "I Like Fun," and a handlebar mustache.

Class.

And then his song started. "Gay Bar" by Electric 6.

Just when things couldn't get gayer, hot dogs started raining down on the crowd.

As if that wasn't enough for me to fall in love with Lavendar, when one of the judges told him he was "looking for something a little gayer," Lavendar immediately peeled off his jean shorts to reveal shiny hot pants.

Then judge Jason Jones from The Daily Show upped the ante. He promised Lavendar a higher score if he showed the crowd what was under the hot pants.

Answer? A man thong. You have to respect a costume that is so thorough.

Later in the show, we saw the whole cock-and-balls from Dirk Courage. He was not awarded the promised additional points. Sad.

Round one ended and after a short wait, it was announced there was a three-way tie for first and second place. Six people were moving on to the finals.

In the first round, competitors performed to a song of their choice. For round two, there was a compulsory song revealed only minutes before the first competitor took the stage.

The second round required actual air-guitar playing skills, improvisation and a surprising amount of fitness. At least two competitors looked tuckered out in the middle of their 60 seconds. It looked like contestants weren't going to be able to rely on rehearsed gimmicks -- but we were wrong.

After a strong showing by D.C. local STD, a gymnastic performance by Airisol -- the only female finalist, the show was stopped by William Ocean.

William Ocean

Ocean's performance started out pretty standard, but halfway through, he came to the edge of the stage and got onto the shoulders of his huge crowd of supporters. His groupies were well-rehearsed. Some shined lights up on Ocean while others filled the air around him with Silly String and confetti as he was carried, still air guitaring, through the crowd.

Ocean walked away with a controversial win, booed loudly by the crowd that was pulling for hometown favorite STD. Judge Mike Wise of the Washington Post summed up my thoughts best saying, "You better bring your entire crew with you to Finland." It's hard to imagine Ocean minus his 15 or so followers.

The contest was over. A loud and crazy night. After announcing Ocean as winner, the crowd was invited on stage for one last song, Free Bird (most likely a requirement in the Boone's sponsorship contract).