Battle of the Air bands

Our PTA event has passed with another successful fund raiser. The Battle of the Air Bands is a fund raiser where middle schoolers with their best friends can pick a song put together their own choreographed act and go on stage to perform in front of an audience of 400 to 500 people. Its supposed to be a family friendly entertainment. We try to keep the music clean of language or inappropriate choices.

Trevor chose Surfin Bird by Trashman. It goes "Every body's heard about the bird" over and over again. Its an obnoxious surfing song from the 60's. That was what he and his friends chose. They wore Hawaiian shirts and shorts on stage. There were three of them, a fake guitarist, a fake drummer, Trevor was the fake lead singer. With his big thighs jiggling and his face intense with concentration, he danced in front of the multitudes in the audience of screaming middle schoolers. and had his two minutes of fame on stage. I could not have been more proud. He had no fear.

He tossed stuffed fuzzy birds into the audience as part of his act. We had tried to find those rubber birds used in comedy acts but were unable at short notice. He wanted them an hour before we were supposed to be at the auditorium. So we stopped and just picked up some stuffed animal birds instead. Trevor found out from some friends later, the birds were ripped apart by one set of girls in the audience so they could each have a piece of souvenir stuffing.

The audience was pretty full. The place holds 700 at capacity. I am thinking 400 to 500 parents and children filled the seats. To stand in front of that many people and not freeze up at age 13, is so impressive to me. I did think the song was horrendous and all they did was stand and bounce up and down for the duration, but the audience loved it. I even heard some parents chuckle around me when the act first started. I glowed with pride.

One of the acts was a dark hard rock song with the boys in long leather jackets with long hair. I was happy for my boy's clean short hair and Hawaiian shirts. Trevor doesn't have a dark streak in his body.

Riley would never have done what Trevor did, get on stage and dance around like a fool in front of hundreds of people in an act he had made up himself. Riley could barely enter his first classroom in Kindergarten the first day because of the noise and chaos. Time has not improved his shyness very much as yet.

I was sad Tom and Riley did not go. Riley said he didn't want to be inundated by the noise. Tom chose not to go for similar reasons. Adding in screaming middle schoolers, I let them off the hook. They can watch the DVD when it comes. Trevor performed in the second half so they would have sat through a lot before they could have escaped.

The self assurance and confidence this kind of performing will give a young person is wonderful. It is one of the best fund raisers I have ever seen as it has that community involvement and entertainment aspect. It is not going door to door with a book of junk no one really needs or wants. The kids made up their own acts, sold tickets to each other and asked sponsors for larger donations to raise money.

Sponsors got their name or business in the program and on the big screen in the beginning and on the DVD that will be replayed for grandparents and friends over and over again. Nice exposure and advertising for little money. Those DVD's will be played 4 years from now, in high school, at some drinking party for laughs and entertainment, and they will be entertaining and fun. The memories will last forever for those young brave students who climbed on that stage and put together their own act for their friends and families. Their friends in the audience will remember them for it also, envious that they weren't as brave and fearless as the ones on stage getting all the glory.