First Impressions - Column

The house lights fade.
The crowd erupts in unbridled frenzy as the shaggy silhouette of the frontman appears on stage, hiffs away half a mug of fire water and lurches toward the microphone stand.
Then all goes quiet in tense anticipation of the first crashing of the cymbal.
Test yourselves, Tauranga rock fans - am I describing the opening seconds of;
a) The Who at The Isle of Wight in 1970,
b) Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden in 1973,
c) Pink Floyd at Earls Court Arena in 1980 
d) Oasis at Knebworth in 1996?
Wrong again.
I'm talking about a far greater rock experience - a soundscape of earth-smacking riffs to rival any big-bill show at Western Springs - and it took place in this very country ... no more than a decade ago.
Tucked behind the drum kit was that unstoppable beat machine Hayley Ander, next to her the cool, bass-slinging Aarad Russell, to his right the lead guitar shredding Chloe Lewis and, to her front, the stage-chewing rockstar and Jim Morrison reincarnate, Phil Old.
Completing this super-quintet was... me, nervously strumming away on a cheap Fender imitation six-string with a pick cut from a dog food container.
Together, we were The Random Variables - still lauded by rock historians as The Rolling Stones of Taranaki high school cover bands.
We'd formed one golden summer after a few lunchtime butcherings of Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner on the high school rugby field.
Before long we'd turned my parents' empty farmhouse into a jam pad with enough dodgily wired amplification to scare the heifers in the next paddock and short out every electric fence on the farm.
Occasionally Mum and Dad, the closest thing we had to groupies, would come over to hear Hey Joe or Sultans of Swing, performed hopelessly out of time and out of tune.
Once we'd ruined enough rock staples to constitute a set list, the Random Variables set out to conquer the Stratford 50th birthday band circuit.
All summer long, we lived the heady life of rock and roll excess - maybe not by riding motorbikes through hotel hallways or throwing TVs out of twelfth-storey windows - but certainly by showing up to gigs 10 minutes after we were supposed to.
When everyone left for university, the band broke up before any of us could overdose on heroin, die in a plane crash or - a rocker's worst fate - become a judge on American Idol.
Our last concert at the Backgammon Club, a little country venue that once hosted blues great Stevie Ray Vaughan, might have been the greatest farewell concert since The Band's The Last Waltz.
There have often been whispers of a reunion, but we're still yet to climb on to a roof top in Stratford and fire up the amps again.
I thought of the old band a week or two ago when an email popped up in my inbox from the proud mum of young Tauranga rocker Aaron "Baron" McNeight.
Aaron's the lead vocalist of Airatic, an act that hails itself as, and what very well may be, "the air band of the century".
According to the bio on its official website, Airatic formed last year at Papamoa, New Zealand, as the Airpocalypse - but unfortunately had to change its name over copyright problems with another, probably lesser, air band.
Airatic won plenty of fans at its maiden performance at the Mount Maunganui Talent Quest, but lately it's been tough out there for the boys to get a gig.
Surely there's a club owner or a promoter out there in Tauranga who can offer these guys the chance to become the next Random Variables.
If you can help them, email me at jamie.morton@bayofplentytimes.co.nz. Because when it comes to bands about to rock like Airatic, we should only salute them.