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July 28, 2014
2014 Mid-Atlantic US Air Guitar Regional Championship
Saturday night marked my favorite annual event in DC: the air guitar championship at the 9:30 Club. On the line were three spots in the national championship (which will be held in Kansas City in a few weeks). I've been going to the competition since 2008. This year's crop of performers was consistently solid, though there weren't any major incidents that will go down in air guitar history (a la 2008's incident with multiple people jumping off the balcony -- with The Shred breaking his ankles -- or last year's epic jump onto, performance on, and jump off of the balcony from Tommy Fretless). Here are some of the highlights.
The competition kicked off with two videos, this promo video of former World Champ Hot Lixx Hulahan (to which the guy next to me asked, "How do you get a job after making that?") and a compilaltion training video of most of the evening's competitors:
Hot Lixx, Air Guitar Nation antagonist Bjorn Tu Roque, and my favorite air guitarist Nordic Thunder kicked things off with an opening performance:
In the evening's first truly random and humorous moment, Bjorn asked for a few volunteers to form an air band behind him for another opening number. Before he was halfway through his sentence, a drunk guy hopped onto stage and took his shirt off, preparing to play air drums. A quartet of drunk girls volunteered to play air bass, but it looked more like they were playing mandolin or a washboard -- unless they were pioneering a new bass technique that the world hasn't seen yet.
G.Tso$ kicked things off with a very underwelming performance (I've never been a huge fan of his after his swinging belts into the crowd incident a few years ago which left me and everyone else in the front row ducking with fear, but he is normally much better than he was on Saturday). A drunk thundercat themed lady was next, who spent much of the performance lunging around the stage like a cat, so at least she's good at sticking to a theme.
One of the competitor's mom was standing next to us in the front row. She was very nervous. Her kid had awesome pants and finished middle of the pack:
After chugging a beer and setting his chest hair on fire during the DC qualifiers, Tobias Slaypool went with a more subdued performance this time around and also had awesome pants:
Mitt Umlaut delivered the first truly impressive performance of the evening, earning himself a spot in the second round. Both of his performances were better than his scores indicated:
Brock McRock had a lot going on with his outfit: Skynyrd-esque hair, a cowboy hat, a firefighter uniform, and the biggest Texas belt buckle I've ever seen:
After wowing me at the DC qualifiers, Ultimate Warrior inspired Dick Diesel was dissapointing on the big stage. Ditto with the Fah King Rocker, though at least he randomly brought a pinnapple onto stage (a sign of hospitality perhaps?) and proceeded to do nothing with it (Bjorn later gave it to Brock McRock's father in law as a birthday gift).
The end of the round one line up featured a slew of all-stars. Doug "the Thunder" Strook and President Baberham Lincoln delivered solid performances, easily moving themselves on to round two. The surprise of the evening was that The Shred came out of retirement (the dude was old when I saw him break his ankles in 2008 and he's had multiple hernias since then). I've been critical of Shred in the past, calling him overrated on this blog. On the margins I still think that is true, but he delivered a truly epic performance on Saturday and deserved the perfect score that he got. It was by far the best I've ever seen from him. Well done, Shred.
With round one in the books, Tommy Fretless and Nordic Thunder delivered halftime performances. Tommy won the DC regionals last year and it was never brought up why he wasn't competing. Does he have an automatic qualifier to nationals? Is he injured? It's unclear.
The compulsory song for round two was a Weird Al track, which didn't seem to go over well with the crowd. The scores didn't reflect it, but Baberham Lincoln had the best round two performance by far (it was even better than her round one performance, which rarely happens because the song is a surprise). Doug the Thunder Strook was probably also better than eventual winner The Shred in round two, but it's hard to quibble with the end results since 1) they all did great and 2) will all get to compete at nationals.
The night ended, as all air guitar competions end, with the crowd joining the competitors on stage to air guitar to "Free Bird." You know, to promote world peace. Because air guitar is awesome and random like that. So your assignment before next summer: rent Air Guitar Nation, become hooked on the ridiculousness of competitive air guitar and join my growing entourage at the 9:30 Club next year for the fun.
July 27, 2014
July 24, 2014
Belated Concert Review: Katy Perry
At the end of June I saw Katy Perry live for the third time. Each has been a totally different experience. I first saw Katy on the side stage at Warped Tour before One of the Boys came out*. It was an awesome set – high energy and not gimmicky. She played guitar on most songs. Her star rose pretty quick after that as “I Kissed a Girl” shot up the charts. By the next time she came back to DC, she was headlining at the 9:30 Club and had a giant inflatable cat on stage and a rhinestone microphone (as recapped by former YR blogger Whitney). It was also a great set, just a totally different experience. It was gimmicky but in a seemingly tongue in cheek way. She seemed in on the irony. She came the Merriweather the following year, but I skipped that – it was her dress as a cupcake phase and it seemed inappropriate for the venue. If you are going to be that ridiculous and play bigger shows than clubs, I’d rather just see you in an arena to get the full fanfare. Which is what I did this time around.
The first opener was Ferras. This was bizarre. Just very, very bizarre. I was happy when his set was over. Capital Cities were better. I’m not a huge fan but at least they were bursting with energy and weren’t boring or weird. Just some high energy, mildly catchy dance-y pop songs. You could do much worse with an opening act.
Katy Perry opened with “Roar” after immerging via a giant prism that opened up on the stage. Every three or four songs she’d leave for an outfit change that seemed to get more and more ridiculous as the night went on. The set was heavy on hits and her recent album, which is to be expected, if still disappointing (Diss Katy Perry all you want, but One of the Boys is a fabulous pop album. Her singles have been catchy since then, but not her albums as a whole). She busted out an Egyptian theme for “Dark Horse,” “E.T.” and “I Kissed A Girl.” In a perplexing move she did a slow, jazzy version of “Hot N Cold” while dressed as a cat. I should also mention that about a third of the audience were children and they were all dressed like cats. Even at the bat before the show, which was disconcerting. She did play guitar on a mini-three song set including “By the Grace of God” and a mashup of “The One That Got Away” and “Thinking of You.” But even that wasn’t really a stripped down acoustic set up – she performed in from of a giant flower microphone stand and watered fake plants with glitter. Everything at a Katy Perry arena show, so it seems, is over the top and not in a way that makes sense. It all felt a little ridiculous when compared to other pop arena concerts I’ve seen in the past year – Lady Gaga, P!nk, and Beyonce. It was more ridiculous and not in a way that made it more fun. Still, by the time she got around to songs like “Teenage Dream,” “California Gurls,” and “Firework” it was hard not to enjoy the songs, even if there were giant inflatable emoji floating around the arena for no apparent reason. I couldn’t help but think, this must be what a Miley Cyrus concert is like.
*I thought that was some pretty good Katy Perry street cred until my concert companion Jennifer informed me that her Alabama youth group had gone to see a Katy Hudson concert growing up, back when KP was doing Christian rock. No way I can beat that.
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