The makers and stars of AIR GUITAR NATION (winner of the audience award at SXSW, and official selection at Tribeca, Silverdocs, Full Frame, Britdoc and Edinburgh) headed to a small resort town in northern Michigan known as Traverse City for Michael Moore's second annual Traverse City Film Festival.
It was amazing.
We arrived in time for our midnight screening (added after our first screening sold out) and went down to the greenroom to meet Mr. Moore."I LOVE this film!" he gushed. "I wanted to open the festival with it, but I'm the youngest person on the committee, and they wouldn't let me!"
We were blown away. The screening was great, and we went back to our insanely VIP accomodations to drink until 4am, in classic air guitar style.
The next day, after a bit of leisure time on the balcony and at the Pirate's Cove Fun Park (Bjorn finally beat C-Diddy at something - Mini Golf!) we headed over to the 7pm SOLD OUT screening. The line was around the block.
We watched from the balcony of the beautiful State Theater as Michael Moore got up on stage to introduce the film. Moore noticed a young kid in the front row and asked him if he was excited to see Air Guitar Nation. The kid said he was the first in line.
"You were first in line, and now you are sitting in the front row?" asked Moore.
"Yeah!" said the kid.
"Get up here on stage!" said Moore. And the kid, whose name we were told was Max, joined Michael on stage.
The audience went nuts - for Max, for Michael, and for the film.
We came out for the Q&A and got a standing ovation, and tons of great questions from the audience including, "What's the worst injury you've sustained playing air guitar." Little did I know what foreshadowing lay in that question...
We hung out with Max a little bit afterwards. He is the coolest kid EVER.We headed off to the Aireoke after party at the Loading Dock bar, and it was off the hook, so to speak. Lots of great participants, some great air bands, demonstrations by me and C-Diddy...
As the evening wore on, it was time for a duet with me and The Diddy.
We chose "Good Times Bad Times" the Zepp song we played a duet to at the very first air guitar competition in New York, 2003. It was amazing. At one point, I got up on the tall PA speaker to rock from on-high.
Then I got on top of C-Diddy's shoulders (stealing William Ocean's move form this year's finals) and played the rocking Page solo from there.
At the end of the solo, however, I zigged when I shoulda zagged, and C-Diddy bucked when he shoulda...done something else.
In other words, I did a massive faceplant from C-Diddy's shoulders directly on to the stage, landing on my face, shoulder and left hand--which I immediately assumed was broken.
I felt a little electric shock in the left side of my face, and birdies flew in circles around my head.
After a few moments in the men's room with some ice, all was well again, and the rocking continued! My hand, thankfully, was not broken.
The next night, we went to the closing night party and got to meet some more of the truly wonderful people of Traverse City. They rock! Then we found out we won an award, but nobody was sure what it was...turns out we tied for the audience award with Little Miss Sunshine and Viva Zapatero!
We finished off the evening at Michael's Surprise Screening where he premiered a "secret film" he has been working on about the 2004 election (remember that? ugh...) called The Great Slacker '04 Uprising. I have to say it totally blew me away. The film chronicles Michael's 60+ city tour during the '04 election and all the rallies he organized trying to get young people to vote. I was so energized and excited by it. Of course, despite the fact that we know how it ends (TRAGICALLY!) it somehow remains a completely uplifting film. I was ready to start an air guitar mid-term election rally! It could happen...
Last, we hung out with Mr. Moore on the street in front of the theater to gush to him about his movie. It was all fairly surreal. And, totally incredible.
Thanks Michael! Thanks Traverse City!!
(note - more pix and video to come...)
