Reviewed by Kit Burns
Steve Weinberger with Sarah Torribio/No Air Guitar Allowed
If there is one central problem with Steve Weinberger’s humorous book No Air Guitar Allowed, it’s this: Upon reading it, at the next concert you attend your focus might not be on the artist onstage but the kinds of people who are watching. Chapter by chapter, Weinberger breaks them down, exposes the kind of fools you can find in the sweat-soaked whirlpool of rock shows. However, those of you who raise lighters during the power ballads, relax; Weinberger isn’t damning anybody to hell or even complaining. Instead, he’s both laughing at those crazy, sometimes embarrassing antics and with them, too.
You see, Weinberger is one of you. Much of the silliness described in the book could only be remembered by somebody who participated in that kind of behavior himself. Weinberger’s writing is easy to understand yet wickedly funny. His pen does not subscribe to the intellectual analysis of rock-critic poetry; instead, he aims for pure entertainment, making sure the reader has at least five or six giggles on each page. Taken as a whole, that’s a lot of laughing going on. It makes a perfect gig for your fellow music fan, especially those emo kids who haven’t smiled since they were kicked out of the playground.
