The final preliminary round of the Austin Air Guitar Championships is taking place this Tuesday at the Alamo Drafthouse. This is the last opportunity for participants to compete for a spot in the finals, wherein a representative of Austin will be chosen to shred at the National Championships in New York. The winner at New York moves on to compete in the World Championships in Finland—and, presumably, to enjoy an elevated social status for his or her remaining days on Earth (air guitar champions don’t believe in the afterlife). We attended the penultimate preliminary round of the Air Guitar Championship at the Alamo Ritz last month; we share our experience after the jump.

The previous round of the competition, now in its fourth year, was hosted by Coldtowne’s Chris Trew and Alamo Drafthouse owner Tim League. They laid out the judgment criteria in three terms: stage presence, technicality, and “airness"— the ability of the contestant to convince the judges that he (all contestants were male) is handling a guitar. League emphasized technicality—specifically, not being a “fish” with the left hand—while Trew seemed to favor stage presence as the underlying pillar of an air guitar performance.

The competition was divided into two segments: an introductory round and the final five. The introductory round lasted about an hour or so, and the threshold for making the final five was pretty clear. Song selection played a larger part in the intensity of the performances than we expected; this was most apparent when “The Ladies’ Man,” backed by The Weather Girls’ It’s Raining Men, shredded on what looked like the world’s smallest guitar through a series of arms-only epileptic outbursts.

The final five were brought back on stage and presented with a clip from a randomly-selected song. Each performer internalized the clip differently as they listened; some bobbed their heads, others shredded along with the tempo. When the clip finished playing, the final five were dismissed from the stage and invited up one-by-one to perform an improvised act to the song they had just heard.

The two most memorable guitar maneuvers in the final five—like special, cheat-code released moves in a real-life version of Rock Band—came from the performers known as M.O.D. and, ultimately taking first place, Hand Banana. MOD, dressed in a retro-color baseball jersey, tossed his guitar high in the air. As it reached the apogee of its arc and began its descent, he followed it on the stage, bracing for its impact and flawlessly resuming his shred.

Hand Banana, wearing his Hoover’s Cooking waiter’s uniform, discarded his guitar pick and produced a bow, furiously shredding his guitar with it for the remainder of the song. This tactic probably shifted the final judgment in Hand Banana’s favor over Bucknasty, who dipped his hand in alcohol and blew fire before beginning his shred.

In the end, Hand Banana—whose father was in attendance and joined him on stage—took the $100 cash prize and the spot in the finals.

It was fitting that the second-to-last preliminary round of Air Guitar competition began with an open invitation for the audience to play Guitar Hero. The fantastic images broadcast by that game—massive gargoyles intricately pummeling instruments made of bone; a stage festooned with banners woven with the souls of the condemned—speak to the spirit of air guitar. Music is part of it, but it’s merely the starting point. Air guitar is ceremony; it is a celebration of the attitude behind the music. The goal of air guitar is to transmute the essence of a song into the physical act of shred. And Hand Banana, with his goofy outfit, nose-ring, and violin bow, did that better than any other contender on the stage.