Fight Breaks Out at Guitar Celebration

Kansas City was still recovering this weekend from last week's riots, where what should have been a celebration by thousands of guitarists playing “Smoke on the Water” turned into a brawl after a rival group showed up to play “Stairway to heaven.”

“They’ve got no right coming here with their Led Zeppelin,” said Deep Purple devotee W.L. “Chick” Dibbler. “Everybody knows the greatest guitar riff in the pantheon is ‘Smoke on the Water.’ And I’ll punch anybody who says different.”

And punch they did. The riots went on for four hours, with thirty-three would-be guitar heroes injured along with six riot police. Tear gas, water cannons, and dogs were used to disperse the warring camps, and over a hundred people were arrested.

The guitarists had gathered together in an attempt on the Guinness Record for “Lamest Collection of Wannabes in the Same Place” but just missed the record set at the 2004 MTV “Real World/Road Rules Tryout Reunion,” attended by almost 2,000 people.

“It was just a terrible insult,” said resident Teresa Gumption, who had been injured in the fracas. “I tried to calm the two sides down by proposing a compromise song, ‘Freebird,’ but that just made things worse.”