AIR GUITAR NATION

We've all done it. At least once. You're listening to a particularly rockin' song. Probably AC/DC or Led Zeppelin when suddenly, without even meaning to, your inner Rock God is resurrected from wherever such gods go to hide and you're suddenly rockin' out on air guitar. Though, to be clear this usually happens when you're alone in your car or in front of the bathroom mirror alone. The operative word there being alone.

But director Alexandra Lipsitz has uncovered an entire movement of people who refuse to hide their passion for Rock. People so proud of their ability that they travel thousands of miles to compete for the title of the greatest air guitarist in the world at the World Air Guitar Championships in Finland.

Alexandra Lipsitz, director of Air Guitar Nation says that the Finns believe that practicing air guitar is really all about world peace. “One cannot hold a gun and play air guitar at the same time.”

Lipsitz film tells the story of the beginning of the US Air Guitar Championships. Of how Kristin Rucker and Sedrick Devitt happened upon a story about the World Championships in Finland (in that pantheon of hip underground info, The Wall Street Journal), went to see it for themselves and came back to the United States and tried to pitch the idea as a reality show to Magical Elves, a production company known for work on reality shows such as Project Runway and Top Chef.

“It’s like a rock show and a sporting event combined and once you try it yourself it’s liberating. During the World Championship Sedrick whose stage name is Air Lingus kept yelling at me to release my inner air guitar,” says Lipsitz.

What about the licensing fees? All this music is heavily copyrighted.

Lipsitz agreed. “Nobody could wrap their mind around how you could cut it without breaking the bank with licensing fees. Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith. How could you make this without spending too much?”

“But you can’t make a movie about the love of rock without the rock. The soundtrack in this thing is amazing. We were just going for these songs and we locked it in. Magical Elves believed in it enough and they made it happen. It’s a big risk but we believe it’s that f**king good. Everybody believes in it.”

Judged on stage charisma, technique, artistic impression and something called “airness”, an air guitarist is judged on a scale of 4.0 to 6.0 like figure skating.

I asked Alex to explain the concept of airness. She was searching for words while frantically googling the word. “Well it’s not about footwear, I just wikipediad it. Airness is what makes a person a good guitarist. It transcends what they are doing and it bccomes something completely different. It’s like you are no longer watching air guitar you are watching a rock god rock out.”

Still having some difficulty understanding the concept Alex finally reassures me that it’s a concept you have to experience to understand. “You will know when you have seen it. You must come up to me and tell me at what stage you got “airness”.

We will all get that chance on Friday night of the True False Film Festival at 10 p.m. when Air Guitar Nation shows at the Forrest Theatre in the Tiger Hotel.

As they say on the movie poster, “to err is human, to air guitar divine.”

US Air Guitar
World Air Guitar