Air Guitar Nation

At its height it's performance art. Or instant meditation. Possibly both. Or something else.

Air guitar. The much-maligned art of miming along to a heavy metal soundtrack (Motorhead appear de rigeur) while slamming ghost chords and running your fingers up an invisible fretboard. While pulling a funny face.

Since the early 1990s, the northern Finnish village of Oulu has been the mecca for air-guitarists across the globe (well, northern Europe, Canada and Australia) with its annual imaginary fret-melting championships.

Now America wants in. And there are two guys - both bitter rivals - ready to take on the established plank-spanking veterans up for the title.

In pole position is David Jung, aka C-Diddy, a wannabe actor who swatted off all-comers in the Eastern Seaboard heat above a strip-club in Manhattan.

Triumphing again at the notorious Roxy on LA's sunset strip, he found himself vanquishing the grimly determined Bjorn Turoque (real name Ben Crane). Together they embark on a bitter contest for the fleet-fingered crown.

After flying out to Finland, C-Diddy is invited to perfect his act - half-Samurai, half Jimmy Page - at a boot camp - "a sort of Olympic village" on a remote island (one air guitarist remarks: "it’s a bit Blair Witch").

Reigning champion Zac Monro puts them through their paces with lectures on fitness, technique (basically jumping in the air as the final chord descends) and dealing with groupies, presumably virtual ones.

Then, out of the blue, Bjorn arrives. He's scraped together the air fare and it's a rocktastic battle to the death. Well, something like that.

Director Alexandra Lipsitz has struck gold with David Jung, an immensely likeable sort with a ready line in deprecating wit. Loathe as I am to admit it, his performances are genuinely impressive.

Lipsitz wisely plays it straight, resisting the temptation to humiliate competitors where the option of mockery (Queen's Brian May makes an appearance) would be just too easy.

It's immensely engaging and absolutely hilarious. As one pseudo-rocker puts it: To err is human… to air guitar, divine."

Tim Evans