Follow the competition
The U.S. Air Guitar Nationals will begin at 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Manhattan’s 1,200-capacity Irving Plaza. U.S. Air Guitar plans to tweet updates from
Twitter.com/Usairguitar, and hopes to videostream the evening’s events online at
usairguitar.com.
Top: The night before the regional air guitar championships in Washington, Kasten rehearses in his “dude room” at home. Bottom, from left: Chris Paxton, a.k.a. “sanjar the Destroyer”; athena Kopsidas, a.k.a. “shreddy Boop”; Matthew “airistotle” Burns; and Mike “Juris Rocktor” sacks.
See more photos and video clips at
washingtonpost.com/magazine.
slide, but the 9:30 Club’s stage is car- peted. Still, the judges’ selection, Van Halen’s “I’m the One,” is right up his classic rock alley. “If I don’t nail this,” he says. “Shoot me.” No need. His second- round scores — 6, 6, and 5.9 — are more than enough. Kasten is bound for the nationals in New York on July 22. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” blasts
through the club, and the crowd is invited to air-jam onstage with the con- testants. A kaleidoscope of audience members playing air guitars of their own crams the stage for a nine-minute performance complete with hugs, high- fives and an exuberant Kasten in the
thick of it shouting: “Oh, my God, are you kidding me, man? I don’t freaking believe it! I’m so freaking stoked!”
a few weeks later, Kasten is still stoked. “At my age, to still be able to get up there and produce air onstage better than I ever have was pretty exhilarat- ing,” he says. He is brainstorming new air moves
and watching videos of his past per- formances to identify where he might improve. An instructor at his daughter Jenna’s dance school, Spotlight Dance Studio, is offering tips to increase his speed and agility. He’s planning to up
his daily air guitar workout from 15 minutes to 30, all while incorporating weight lifting and an “8 Minute Abs” crunch session into the mix. He wants to be toned and tight by nationals, when he will be one of 16 finalists, and the oldest by 17 years. “I’d like to be able to rip my shirt off
in the compulsory song if possible,” he says. “When I take my shirt off, I don’t want it to look like a 48-year-old guy up on stage.”
Kris Coronado is a frequent contributor to the Magazine. She can be reached at
wpmagazine@washpost.com.
July 18, 2010 | The WashingTon PosT Magazine 17
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