Onion festival gives rise to 'guitar hero'

WESLACO - Anthony Santiago's hands shook as he prepared to battle.

A hefty prize hung in the balance. Rock would be the warrior's weapon.

A group huddled around the battlefield, a flat-screen television playing a video game.

Santiago competed with about 40 others Saturday at Weslaco's 19th annual Texas Rio Grande Valley Onion Festival. The celebration honors the creation of the Texas 1015 Onion, a variety developed in Weslaco and named for its recommended planting date of Oct. 15.

For years, hundreds have flocked to the event, which features onion eating contests, gobs of food and dozens of musical acts.

This year, the festival got a technological boost as organizers added an Internet café tent, the center of which featured a video game tournament - the one that shook Santiago's hands all day long.

Video warriors competed in Guitar Hero III, a popular game in which would-be rock gods wield a large plastic guitar rather than a traditional handheld game controller.

The guitar features several buttons, which players must push as they appear on screen. The game simulates an actual rock star experience.

The player with the best chops earns the most points and an eventual victory. For $1, the people at the festival became rock warriors. The grand prize winner earned $150.

Santiago's hands shook as he waited for his turn. The 17-year-old plays the game often with his friends from Weslaco High School. He's normally cold blooded as he dispatches the competition like so many wayward sons unable to carry on.

But he ran into some harder-rocking competition at the tournament. Randy Perez dominated the game for most of the day. The 18-year-old University of Texas-Pan American student entrenched himself on the leaderboard.

The tournament ran from 1 to 6 p.m. Steve Chamblin loaned the festival his Xbox 360 game console and coordinated the tournament. He set it up so players could get high scores on five different songs. At the end of the day, those with the highest scores would do battle.

With 45 minutes left to qualify, Perez dominated the leaderboard. Until Santiago stepped up.

He launched into "Mississippi Queen," knocking off one of Perez's scores. Try as he might, Perez couldn't dislodge Santiago's score from the leaderboard.

So the two battled in a final showdown. The song? "Mississippi Queen."

Much was at stake. Santiago's girlfriend attended the festival and was among the riders in the day's dancing horse performances, on the other side of the fairgrounds. Santiago had watched for a while but then left to play Guitar Hero.

Sure, it may have been a dirty deed done dirt cheap, but he wanted to take a chance and win the money. Then it wouldn't seem like such a cheap trick.

He and his rival commenced to rock. As if with the momentum of a rolling stone, shaking-hands Santiago bested his favored adversary.

He had never stopped believing. And he knew immediately how to spend the winnings.

"I'm going to spend it on my girlfriend," he said, the smell of onions hanging in the air.
____

Zack Quaintance covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4447.