Have you ever found yourself in the audience at a concert, mindlessly strumming along, pretending that you're the band's lead guitarist? Heck, ever do that while listening to music at home?
Well, if you fancy yourself as something of an air guitar pro, you'd be pleased to know that there's an actual, bona fide Air Guitar World Championships .
As the current air guitar world champion, Aapo Rautio, recounts in The Guardian, his crown has been a long time coming, as he's been practicing his craft since he was a kid.
“I was always ‘playing’ air guitar, miming along to the biggest rock tunes with my imaginary instrument,” he relates. “My parents were music fans – my dad loved Bruce Springsteen and U2. AC/DC was the first band I discovered on my own. Angus Young, the lead guitarist, was my hero.”
As Rautio relays, stepping on stage for the first time gave him a taste of what it feels like to be a rock star – and he was officially hooked.
He continues, “When I stepped on stage, I did my routine to AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie. The crowd started chanting ‘Angus,’ just like on the live recording, and it hit me: this is what it feels like to be a rock star. I made it to the finals, playing to hundreds of people in Oulu’s market square, and I was hooked. I got the nickname ‘Little Angus’ that day.”
And if you're wondering what the competition actually involves, Rautio describes it as “intense but joyful” experience.
“Contestants have 60 seconds to give everything – explosive energy, perfect mime, rock star charisma – on an invisible guitar,” he explains. “Judges score you on a scale from 4.0 to 6.0. In the case of a tie, there’s an ‘air-off’ between the final two contestants: a song plays and you improvise.”
Preparation is everything. For this year's championship, Rautio chose an Avenged Sevenfold song. He listened to it on loop for weeks and, akin to a world-class athlete or performer, made sure his body was well up to the task: “By the time competition day came, I could feel the song in my bones,” he recalls.
Fast forward to the actual show day, and when the scores came in, Rautio had tied with Japanese champion Yuta “Sudo-chan” Sudo. And, like every other battle of the bands (or, in this case, air guitar battle), it was time for a tie breaker – appropriately labelled, in air guitar circles, as an “air-off”.
“We went head-to-head to Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses. When I heard the song, I felt relieved because it was one that I knew, and more than anything I was so excited to perform one more time. When they announced I’d won, the square erupted.
“The moment is hazy. I think I blacked out from shock,” he recollects. “Then everyone started singing Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World and lifted me on to their shoulders. Justin Howard – AKA Nordic Thunder – a former champion and one of my closest friends, was hugging me. I cried.
“I was Finland’s first air guitar world champion in 25 years. The previous Finnish champion, Markus ‘Black Raven’ Vainionpää, was there, too. He gave me the biggest hug and said it was ‘about damn time.’”
Despite being a guitarist and a drummer in an actual band, Rautio asserts that the air guitar community is truly one-of-a-kind, a family with the ethos of “make air, not war” summing up the spirit that permeates the championships.
“Before you go on stage, every competitor comes and hugs you. Then, for 60 seconds, you’re allowed to be free, silly, the biggest rock star in the world,” the air guitar champion concludes.
And, like every other niche, air guitar enjoys a contested history – with Woodstock ’69 largely cited as one of the documented events where air guitar originated.
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