The Air Guitar World Championships, where people actually compete to see who can best pretend to play a guitar, were held in Oulu, Finland, last weekend. But for a near-tragic accident in 1974, I might have been a contender.

I was 13 years old in 1974 — the year Nixon resigned, Patty Hearst was kidnapped, Ali and Foreman staged a certain "Rumble in the Jungle," and rock band REO Speedwagon released its first big hit, "Ridin' the Storm Out."

That song, with its classic synthesizer-crescendo intro, provided an important milestone in musical taste for my budding teenage pals and me.

After spinning the record hundreds of times at maximum volume on Brad Peters' quadraphonic stereo, Paul Lockhart, Jeff Poore, Brad and I graduated from the ranks of casual listeners to being active participants in what later would be termed the "arena rock" era.

When radio station WQUT announced that REO would perform in concert on the campus of our junior high school in Johnson City, Tenn., we were beside ourselves.

We would attend more rock concerts, but that first show convinced us that making loud music on a stage bathed in multicolored lights amid a hazy sea of hair, denim and burning cigarette lighters would be a fabulous way to earn a living.

Our only problem was that none of us played a musical instrument — unless you count the high part to "Heart and Soul" on piano.

So we did the next best thing, which was to pretend we were playing loud rock music amid a haze of hair, denim, multicolored lights and cigarette lighters.

The recessed lighting in Jeff's parents' basement provided a suitable stage for our fantasy shows. We hired his little sister a couple of times to be our lighting engineer — meaning she flipped switches and turned dimmers up and down during the really jamming segments.

Air guitar didn't have a name back then, much less an international competition. We didn't call it anything. It was just Paul, Jeff and me acting goofy while Brad, who was too cool for our fake guitar school, provided critical analysis.

Such as, "If you're trying to be Jimi Hendrix, you're not doing it right. He was left-handed."

"Is that right?"

"No, left."

Our three-man would-be band — me on guitar, Paul on bass, and Jeff at the nonexistent drums — was going great until one fateful performance under a black light at my house.

I had this heavy glass candle with psychedelic fluorescent colors that looked really cool under the black light. I decided it would be neat to swing that candle around and around with my picking hand during a Pete Townshend windmill maneuver.

I didn't realize Paul had stepped over to do battle with his nonguitar, and I accidentally cracked him over the head with the candle.

You might say he collapsed onstage. Dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Jeff thought it was all part of the show and kept banging away on his drums until the music stopped and the house lights came up.

Paul abruptly quit the band, staggered out of the arena, and never picked up an imaginary instrument again.

His nerves were so shattered by the incident that to this day he can't even walk into a karaoke bar.

Ochi Yosuke of Japan took the crown at this year's Air Guitar World Championships, the New York Times reported. I guess no one ever held a psychedelic candle to him.

Contact Mark Rutledge at mrutledge@coxnc.com.