Japanese man retains title at Air Guitar World Championship in Finland

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Ochi Yosuke, from Japan, has retained his title at the world air guitar championships, held in Oulu, Northern Finland.

Yosuke was one of a range of international competitors, who had qualified for last night's final in the Teatria rock club, where they performed in front of a panel of judges.

French competitor Guillaume "Moche Pitt" de Tonquedec told reporters "It's great. We've seen all the nations, united nations, 'rocking on the free world' and that's good, that's great,".

The contestants who qualified for the finals were from Finland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and Spain. The surprise finalist was local female Oulu resident Hilkka "Gore Kitty" Suvanto, who has twice previously received the lowest score in qualifying.

The performers each mimed one song of their choice, and improvised to one set by a jury. The panel of four judges each gave scores out of six, based on stage persona, technical skill and a quality known as "airness".

Yosuke's prize for the victory is custom built; a Flying Finn electric guitar with a value of U.S.$3,400.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

Romas Dabrukas. "Japanese Man Remains Air Guitar Champion" — Associated Press, September 8, 2007
"Contestants battle for 'King of the Air' guitar title in Finland" — The Canadian Press, September 8, 2007
"Air guitarists battle for glory" — CNN, September 8, 2007

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License