I stepped through the crowd at a local bar and restaurant and strapped the small plastic guitar around my neck. My palms sweated profusely as I ran my fingertips over the candy-colored buttons. The faux-leather harness sliced into my shoulder as I gripped the neck of my ax.
Was Slash this nervous the first time he played guitar? Granted, this was a video game in a bar and not a sold-out stadium crowd of thousands, but the thought crept into my mind.
 “It’s almost like meeting a stranger; or discovering a talent you never knew you had,” said the legendary Guns N’ Roses guitarist in his 2007 self-titled autobiography. “The first time I plucked a melody out on a guitar well enough that it sounded like the original was a bit like that. The more I learned to play guitar, the more I felt like a ventriloquist: I recognized my own creative voice filtered through those six strings, but it was also something else entirely.”
Somehow I doubted that my “Guitar Hero” experience would prove to be as euphoric, but I was going to try and join the ranks of rock’s greatest strummers anyway.
The concept of “Hero” seemed simple enough. Press the colored buttons – green, red, yellow, blue or orange – that correspond with a colored dot or line on the screen at the exact moment it crosses a designated area. And most importantly, do it better than your opponent.
I didn’t have to stretch my imagination to surmise that Slash probably never took the stage with three Twisted Teas sloshing against his bladder. Nor had he ever borrowed his Guns N’ Roses T-shirts from his sister. Despite the fact that I had both of these soft rock traits going for me, I was prepared to shred like I owned the place.
I stared up at the screen from the “player 1” position and chose the cigarette-smoking, shaggy-haired, top-hatted legend Slash as my in-game guitarist. My opponent, “player 2” and a fellow Fly, chose Lars Ümlaüton, a fictional guitarist who looks exactly like Ax and Smash of the popular late ’80s WWF tag team Demolition.
We decided to start our competition with a familiar song – Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” – on the game’s “easy” difficulty setting.
Colored dots began scrolling down the screen in sync with the familiar opening riff of Benatar’s rock anthem: yellow, green, green, red, red, green, greeeen. Holding that last note to coincide with the long green line on the screen was satisfying. I was only half concerned with the fact that my dots and lines weren’t lighting up like my opponent’s.
I was impressed with how well I was doing and repeated the opening riff. The in-game crowd’s jeers were not enough to deter me from expertly repeating the riff once more and skillfully maneuvering a tricky combination of buttons right before the vocals.
Well, you’re a real tough cookie with a long history …
The screen suddenly exploded with flames.
“Player 2 rocks!” a voice proclaimed.
The game had ended and I had lost. I didn’t even make it through the first line of lyrics. I stared dejectedly at the screen as Slash stared back at me accusingly, knowing that I had A) not drunk enough; B) not smoked enough; or C) not slept with enough women to be a rock star.
A statistics screen appeared on the screen so that my opponent and I could examine our guitar accuracy. My adversary performed with 90 percent accuracy. I, on the other hand, had been zero percent accurate with my ax grinding. In other words, I hadn’t hit one note correctly.
Slash had played tunes like Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4,” Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” on a one-stringed flamenco guitar at the age of 14. And I, at the age of 24, couldn’t play one note of a Pat Benatar song.
It was immediately brought to my attention, much to my dismay and the delight of the “Guitar Hero” experts in the bar (from middle-aged men and college kids to actual kids accompanied by adults, of course), that to actually “play” the notes, you have to strum a thin joystick on the body of the guitar in conjunction with the button pushing. As you can probably guess, I had not done this at all.
I quickly demanded a rematch and prepared Slash for our duel. The opening notes of Heart’s “Barracuda” began streaming down the screen and video-game Slash strummed away at his guitar while I strummed mine. By the time the lyrics had kicked in I was adequately rocking out.
You lying (blue) so low (yellow) in the weeds (red, green, green)/ Bet you (red, yellow, red) gonna ambush me (green, yellow)/ You’d have me (red, green, green) down (green), down (red/yellow), down (red/yellow), down (red/yellow) on my knees (red)/ Wouldn’t you, Barracuda?
The song came to a close and the flames burst onto the screen.
“Player 1 rocks!” it exclaimed as my buddy let out a yelp of disbelief.
I had won the match. I was a guitar hero. Slash raised his instrument in victory. We were ready to take on anyone now. Who wanted to trade riffs with me and Slash next? Hendrix? Stevie Ray Vaughn? Santana? Pete Townshend? Tito Jackson?
From the back of the restaurant came my answer. A tiny figure emerged clad in, not leather and chains, but scuffed sneakers and glasses. With the permission of his parents, a small 12-year-old boy stepped up to the screen and, without a word, put the guitar strap around his neck.
I was double this kid’s age and, as such, had acquired quite a few video game titles to my name. Not only was I a “Guitar Hero,” but also a self-proclaimed “Pitfall” hero, “Zelda” hero, “Sonic the Hedgehog” hero and “Call of Duty” hero. I had saved entire kingdoms and a countless number of princesses with nothing but a direction pad and two buttons.
In keeping with the night’s theme, I suggested that we try our hands at Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” My pint-sized opponent had a different idea. Silently, but deliberately, he chose the most difficult song in the game, “Through the Fire and Flames” by DragonForce, and set his difficulty level to “expert.” Scoffing slightly at his confidence, I chose “easy” and prepared for battle.
The song’s opening riff blared through the speakers as an immense number of dots poured down my opponent’s side of the big-screen. Blue. Red. Yellow. Green. Orange. Two buttons at a time. Buttons on opposite sides of the neck. Button combinations I had never even seen before!
The sound of Chicken Little’s fingers clacking out the notes burrowed into my head. It was like he had 10,000 fingers. I desperately tried to keep up with the small handful of notes my “easy” setting had allotted me.
And just as soon as it had begun, it was over. Flames. Cheers.
“Player 2 rocks!”
Having completely whooped my ass, my pint-sized adversary removed his guitar, placed it on the table and walked back to his parents. And there I stood – pathetic, defeated and full of Twisted Tea.
I was no guitar hero.
I glanced back up at the screen to compare our grossly lopsided accuracies, but instead I saw my guitar hero Slash. And while I can’t be certain, I’m convinced that I caught him giving me a reassuring nod. Because Slash understood that just as easily as you can be a guitar hero one day, you can, for any number of reasons, end up a total guitar has-been the next.
And it just so happened that this kid was my Axl Rose.