Back in the 1980's when the knees were still good and fast food could be consumed without guilt, air bands became a thing among the crowd I associated. Air bands and air guitar were experiencing a surge in public expression at the time - I suspect it was the popularity of MTV that was behind the revival.
I say revival because playing air guitar had been a thing for quite some time in the U.S. and Europe (heck, Joe Cocker had played air guitar on stage at Woodstock), so we were not doing anything new - people had been air-conducting orchestras since the first phonographs had been introduced, and air piano players probably were around in the days of Mozart and Beethoven.
The only new aspect of what we were doing was that it was new to us, and had been thrust into the public eye. So, like millions of other kids our age, we were unashamedly enjoying the hell out of it.
One night Tim, Mike, Pete, and I got the idea that we could compete in an Air Band contest that was being held at Willy's Bar, a small dance club along U.S. route 70 about halfway between the base we were all stationed at and the small town of Alamogordo.
We devoted all of 30 minutes practicing our act (a pantomime of the Violent Femmes song "Add It Up") and then headed out for the contest.
We took second to a woman who performed as Stevie Nicks (without an air guitar or an air band, which we thought should have disqualified her...).
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