'John McEnroe' of the air guitar

Dressed as a kind of grunge John McEnroe - long-haired wig, headband, shorts and tennis shoes - Christchurch's Dave Rowlands aka McEnroe took the art of air guitar playing back to its origins (strumming a tennis racquet in the bedroom) to win the national Air Guitar Grand Final at the Poenamo Hotel, Takapuna, on Saturday night.

The skinny "McEnroe" - who works behind the counter at a Christchurch music store - wowed the capacity crowd with his dazzling finger technique and enthusiastic gymnastics, and beat last year's winner Toby "The Tobinator" Penaha from Napier by a mere 1.3 points. Donning a horse head in the second round was enough to give him the nose at an event which was long on laughter and loud on volume.

"McEnroe" goes on to represent New Zealand at the eighth annual Air Guitar World Championships in Finland ("The Tobinator" came second last year).

The philosophy of the AGWC is to promote world peace. According to the AGWC, all evil things disappear from the world whenever people play air guitar.