Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Support the Portland air-guitar champ

Published in the Portland Phoenix

McNallica, Portland’s air-guitar champion (see “Music Seen,” May 4), will head to the next phase of the US Air Guitar Championships on Friday, in Boston. And she’s inviting you to go with her.

McNallica could use the support — even though this contest will be judged by actual judges (rather than by popular acclaim, like the local championship at SPACE). She’s polishing up her air guitar for the performance, which she promises will feature “two signature moves” she couldn’t perform at SPACE because the stage was dampened by a previous performer’s fake blood. She’s hoping those, and her extensive prep work (she has choreographed three different 60-second routines to different songs, so as not to repeat music used by another contestant), will get her a ticket to the national finals in New York in August.

The judging will be “based on figure-skating,” she says, with a scale from 4.0 to 6.0. No word on whether there’s a Russian judge, but we prepped her with a couple Russkie niceties to drop, just in case.

To get you there, McNallica is coordinating rides down to the 21+ show at Harper’s Ferry (158 Brighton Ave in Allston, Massachusetts) on Friday evening, arriving in time for the event’s start at 9 pm. If you want a ride, e-mail her at emcnally@meridianmg.com. Get your $15 tickets in advance atwww.usairguitar.com or call 800.594.8499. You’ll also get a glimpse of Air Guitar Nation movie star (and non-winner) Bjorn Turoque, the celebrity MC.