Rock in a Hard Place

Life on the road with Travis AFB's hippest band

by MATT PEIKEN

Fairfield Daily Republic, October 15 1995©

OREGON COAST — Something's happening in the auditorium, something so unusual that two girls break from their between-class routine for a sneak peak. But at 7:50 a.m., it takes more than a change of pace to jar the other 374 kids at Reedsport High School out of their walking slumber.

"How does anybody expect us to play rock 'n' roll so early in the morning? It's inhuman, that's what it is!"

Though he's smiling, Dean Macomber is only half-joking. Fresh off his second cigarette of the day, he's pacing backstage, holding pairs of drumsticks in each hand, shaking his wrists from side to side.

"What time are we supposed to go on, 8 o'clock?" he asks, hoping someone tells him otherwise. "This is gonna be a fun one."

"Hey, c'mon, don't you know we're the coolest band in the world?" Chris Nelson says while tuning his bass guitar. "They'll think we're so cool, we must be from Seattle."

On any level of cool, this clearly isn't a Seattle band. Aside from the woman who sings, everyone's hair is cropped to code. And instead of flannel, Macomber, Nelson and the rest of the band will soon hit the stage wearing Air Force jumpsuits. Their combat boots, in all likelihood, won't fool anybody.

The band is still trying to solve its sound problems — two power amps blew out during sound check last night — as students trickle into the auditorium.

"Hats off," a teacher says as she directs students into their separate zones: seniors front-center, juniors to the right, sophomores to the left. The cheap seats, above and behind the seniors, go to freshmen, who don't seem to mind the distance. All they know is they're about to see an Air Force band. And more than one student has dozed off before the pre-concert Pledge of Allegiance.

"OK, kids, we have a real treat for you today." Vice Principal Jake Caughell is on stage, talking into a microphone.

"All the way from California, we have the Air Mobility Command Band of the Air Force. They're a rock band and they're called Galaxy."

At this, the kids get their first good laugh of the day. For the five musicians about to play, this is setting up to be a very long morning.

It's just after 7 a.m. on a Sunday, exactly 49 hours before Vice Principal Caughell's rousing introduction, and it seems the only activity at Travis Air Force Base is in Galaxy's rehearsal room.

"Here, put these on."

Verlie Vigil, the band's singer and leader by rank, hands her newest bandmate a pair of thick cloth gloves. Matt Ascione puts them on and grabs the handle of a musical equipment case, rolling it backwards up a ramp and into a large van. Behind him, two other guys are coming up fast with another crate.

"We're just so glad to have him," Vigil says of Ascione. "We don't want to ruin his million-dollar hands."

The Air Force doesn't have nearly that much invested in Ascione. But band leaders were so happy to find a qualified guitarist that they asked him to start work while he's still a civilian.

Far as the band is concerned, the timing couldn't be better. Galaxy is loading up for a tour that is taking the band through three tiny coastal Oregon towns, then on to Crescent City.

"Our keyboardist can do guitar parts, but that doesn't cut it when you're playing for high school kids. It just doesn't look too cool to come out without a guitarist," Vigil says. "Now I feel like we're a rock band again."

Until recently, Ascione appeared destined for a life at sea. His two older brothers, dad, uncle and uncle's wife all were musicians with the United States Navy. Ascione, himself, spent 18 months playing guitar on a cruise ship. But here he is, back on land, playing moving man with a half-dozen people he's only known for five days.

"To be honest, the military was the last thing I wanted," Ascione says. "My whole family was military and I just wanted to do something different. But then I started realizing how tough it is to make it on the outside. I didn't want to struggle anymore to find the next gig. This is steady and secure, and I really needed that right now."

When not rehearsing with his new band, Ascione has holed himself in his room at the Super 8 Motel on North Texas Street, cramming to learn the 10 songs Galaxy is playing on this tour. Actually, Ascione has to learn 11 songs.

The band replaced Soul Asylum's "Misery" at the last minute when Capt. Dean Zarmbinski, commander of Travis' entire band program, passed by during rehearsal, overheard the song's lyrics and ordered it out of the repertoire. Rock band or not, "suicide kings and drama queens . . . put me out of my misery" apparently undermines the message the Air Force wants its bands to project.

Defense secrets aside, Galaxy is perhaps the most unknown part of Travis Air Force Base's community. Few people off the base even know Travis has a rock band, mainly because it rarely performs publicly in Solano County. Even within the base's band department, though, the rock group is an oddity.

Galaxy's rehearsal room is at the far back end of the building that houses the entire Travis band program. Nobody knows whether any thought went behind that placement, but the vibe there is remarkably casual.

Scattered around the floor are cables, cords, effects pedals, guitar amplifiers, monitors and loose pieces of sheet music. On normal rehearsal days, musicians adhere strictly to a dress code of tank-tops and shorts. Sandals are optional.

If this weren't a military installation, you'd swear this was someone's garage. But from the array of modern equipment — rack-mounted amplifiers and digital effects units, new instruments and a professional lighting system — nothing is second-rate. The room is spacious and comfortable and there's enough in the budget to buy each musician separate instruments for rehearsing and touring. Garage bands would kill for similar digs.

The military, though, doesn't embrace rock music for any appreciation of it, but as a tool for recruiting. By playing modern music at high schools and colleges, rock bands put positive spins on the Armed Forces, help erase preconceptions and, ideally, paint military life as an attractive option for young adults who don't know where else to point their futures. Or so goes the theory.

There are no statistics to confirm whether anyone has signed up for duty because a rock band came to school and played a few cool tunes. But unlike other bands within the military, which exist primarily to support military events, the very existence of rock groups hinges on the potential to impress audiences beyond applause.

For their part, recruiters seem happy for the help, often personally asking bands to come into a given city or county, sometimes working directly with the schools to set up performances.

The convoy to Oregon goes almost as slowly as expected. Moments into the trip, Ascione and keyboardist Miguel Gomez, riding in the relatively sporty Ford wagon, lose the small and large vans supposedly following behind them up Interstate 5.

Even with an extended stop at the Hometown Harvest Buffet — where it seems every God-fearing citizen in Medford eats after Sunday church — they're easily the first to arrive in drizzly Florence: population 5,705.

Dean Macomber, Chris Nelson and Verlie Vigil check into the Riverview Motel about an hour later. Nobody knows how far back, or lost, Darrell Baker and soundman Brian Schultz are in the unwieldy truck carrying all the instruments and sound equipment.

"How'd your day go? Is the bird going nuts?"

Macomber is talking on the phone to Ayaha, his wife, mixing English with bits of Japanese. Nelson sits on the edge of the neighboring bed, soaking up the tail end of the Packers-Jaguars game and chowing on the elaborate soup-and-sandwich spread his wife packed him.

"She hates when we're on the road. She can't stand it," Nelson says of his wife, Marjorie. "I'll know she's really had enough when I open the lunchbox and there's nothing in there."

"Or worse," Macomber says, "it'll be something you can't identify."

You wouldn't figure Nelson to play bass, or at least play it well. His fingers are short and stubby, his body built like a tank. He's a martial arts fanatic, reads Muscle & Fitness and various karate magazines and boasts about personally introducing Annapolis Royal, his hometown in Nova Scotia, to American football. But Nelson was so dedicated to music while growing up that, at 10, he moved out of his family's house and boarded a room across town so he could attend a high school with a good music program.

He studied jazz for a year at a small university, but partying got the better of him the following summer. Nelson considered joining the Marines as a musician. But Dale Nelson, who had played trumpet for 20 years with one of the original Air Force bands, arranged a full audition for his son with the Air Force band.

"My dad said, Marines, my ass!" Chris said. Two months later, he was at McGuire AFB in New Jersey, playing bass in a group called Northeast Express.

"I thought I was going to be in a jazz band. But the guys there were about four levels higher than me and we just rocked," he said. "We played metal, funk, pop, and kids would be stage-diving. I'd never seen anything like it. We played an all-girls Catholic school once and they went so crazy, a nun ran up and pulled the plug on us."

Nelson transferred to Travis when McGuire closed. But with three other bassists already on base, the only opening was in the concert band as a percussionist. And just after working his way into the jazz band as a bassist, a new leader came in and changed the group's slant from progressive fusion to Glenn Miller.

So discouraged by the direction of his musical career, Nelson considered leaving the Air Force. But when Galaxy needed a bassist in August 1994, Nelson jumped at it, welcoming the chance to play for young people again.

"We're supposed to cover everything from the '90s to the '50s, but sometimes the '40s creep in there," he said. "We get called on to play 50th anniversaries and reunions, and that just ain't our scene. We can do all that, but we're built to be a rock band. And rock is what we do best."

Florence, Ore., has an eerie Jekyll-and-Hyde quality.

Just off the banks of the Siuslaw River is a quirky little block with cozy coffee shops small boutiques and other businesses catering to tourists. At night, local kids living on the fringe — teenagers with pierced noses, purple-dyed hair and long-fitting flannel — hang out or stroll by on their way to the grand rock-and-cement bridge, a Florence focal point that crosses the north and south sides of town.

It's clearly a facade, though an understandable one. Lumber mills, still the area's top employers, are either cutting back or closing. Construction is down, downtown buildings look frayed and businesses that rely heavily on community support are hurting. Tourism, at least for some, is a life ring.

Smack in the middle of it all, Siuslaw High School is an oasis of hope. Classrooms are modern, the small inner-court area has a pleasant charm and students' spirits appear high. A trophy case near the locker area, the school's nerve center, is stuffed with the brass baubles of past athletic and academic achievements.

The gymnasium, where Galaxy is supposed to play, not only has a main floor, but two large areas jutting out and above each section of bleachers — one with weightlifting equipment, the other with wrestling mats and more basketball hoops. For the band, it shapes up as an acoustic nightmare.

Today's 2:30 p.m. performance is listed as mandatory for students, though it comes after final period, and Vice Principal Randy Ransom expects more than a few of his 540 students to go AWOL.

"It used to be where kids would drop out and get jobs in the mills. Now they just drop out," he said. "So you never know, maybe an Air Force band coming in like this can give them something to think about, maybe present them with some options."

Galaxy didn't bring its lighting rig, so the band will play under the unflattering yellow glow of the gym's lights. But there's a far more pressing problem. Because the gym walls go so far up and out, the guitar tones are bouncing around badly and drown-ing the vocals. Maybe, the band hopes, the sound will improve when students come in and unwittingly dampen the overtones.

Verlie Vigil is flipping through her cache of CDs, looking for background music before Galaxy goes on, when senior class president Kim Dyer walks in.

"I've got Gino Varelli, which is old. I've got Basia, which is old. I've got Mozart, which is really old," she says, drawing a laugh from Dyer.

Vigil scribbles the band's name on a card and hands it to Dyer, who is handling today's introduction. Dyer looks at the card and her eyes get big.

"What does this say, Air Mozility?' "

"You can just say Galaxy," Vigil says.

"So you're in the Air Force and this is what you do?"

"Yeah, we're a rock band."

"A rock band? With the Air Force? Wow, how cool . . . So, this is all you do?"

Dean Macomber is out back, behind the gym, getting in a last cigarette before joining. the other guys in the lockerroom and slipping into his jumpsuit.

The gym floor is empty when in walks Sgt. Mike Reichlein, an Air Force recruiter from Eugene. He didn't book Galaxy's tour, but has such high hopes for the visit that he plans to be at each Oregon show.

"The high schools are good because I can establish a connection," he says. "I may not get a kid the first time I meet him, but the nest time I come back, he knows me. I'll ask him how things are going, how his college or job prospects look. Sometimes we'll bring a band into a school we're not having much success with and use it as a foot in the door -- anything to get them to come into the office. And I'm a great salesman. Once I've get you in my office, you're mine."

At 2:45 p.m., kids flood into the gym as if through an open wound, screaming, laughing, calling over to their friends from halfway across the bleachers. Kim Dyer, the student body president, introduces the band as simply "Galaxy from the Air Force."

The band wastes no time, opening with "Only Want to be With You" by Hootie and the Blowsish. The problems that frustrated the band during soundcheck are all but absorbed by the mass of bodies in the bleachers. Students are listening politely, if not enthusiastically, until Galaxy breaks into a rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire."

You'd think today's kids would have little patience for a classic '50s rocker, but Galaxy found out long ago that this particular tune goes over better than almost anything else on the set list. And sure enough, for the first time during this performance, kids are head-banging, doing the surf, visibly having a good time.

The kids also take surprisingly well to Sgt. Reichlein, introduced by Verlie Vigil after the first song. Despite his overt attempt at winning over the crowd — "So, how's your football team doing.? Who'd you beat last week? You know, I ate some turf out on your football field not too long . . . " — the kids don't boo or even ignore him.

Smartly, Reichlein keeps it short. But when Galaxy gets back to playing, he and Master Sgt. Charles Reynolds work the crowd, handing out dozens of cards for students to fill out. Those that turn them in after the show or drop them in the mail will receive information on the Air Force. More than likely, Reichlein will also call them.

"The big obstacle in the high schools is the perceived notions about the military," says Reynolds, who served at Travis 13 years ago and is now Reichlein's supervisor.

"This community is good for us, more receptive, because there's no military around. But you go to Tacoma, where Air Force planes are flying around you all the time, you're always around the military," he says. "Here, a band comes in, puts on a show, and it's something different. It lets someone like me come in here and tell these kids 'Yes, the Air Force is hiring.' "

The further Galaxy digs into its set, the more kids are giving in to the experience. The opening keyboard run of Seal's ballad "Kiss From a Rose" draws a few squeals from scattered girls in the bleachers. Some of them close their eyes, mouthing the words along with Verlie Vigil as she sings her way through the haunted chorus.

Galaxy's toughest challenge, though, is just ahead. Musically, it's a no-brainer. But only the kids can judge whether five people in Air force jumpsuits can pull off believable modern pop-punk.

"Do you guys like Green Day?" keyboardist Miguel Gomez asks the crowd.

"Yeeeahhh!" "Ha hah!" "Oh my God! Green Day!"

Gomez takes the microphone and sails through the opening verse of "Basket Case." All side chatter has stopped. The kids just have to hear this.

Nobody in the band has dyed hair or pierced anythings. And Gomez' collection of tattoos is invisible beneath the jumpsuit. But the kids are slowly getting into it. Gomez tries to draw them further in by headbanging with Verlie during the song's final chorus. The kids, though, really let go only once during the set — for the drum solo.

Dean Macomber is doing what he always seems to be doing when's not behind the drums — pretending to play the drums.

When he wasn't dozing or driving, he spent the trip from Fairfield to Florence running off rudiments on his rubber practice pad. Then, not more than 15 minutes after checking into his hotel room, Macomber is at it again, this time with the pad propped up on a snare drum stand.

Along with a briefcase toting drumming magazines, drum instruction books and assorted CDs, Macomber never goes anywhere without the pad.

"I'm a nut for this kind of stuff, man," he said, braking only for another smoke just outside the open door of his hotel room. "It's always been practice, practice, practice with me. Sometimes I like practicing even more than playing because I'm just doing my own trip, trying to get better."

Not that he needs to. Macomber won his Pearl drum set five years ago at an Illinois drumming competition and worked his way through a national screening this past year to win the Florida Drum Expo. Wisconsin colleges dangled scholarships at him and military recruiters hounded him right out of high school, trying to get him into their band programs.

Macomber, whose brother played with one of the premiere Air Force bands in Colorado Springs, chose the Air Force seven years ago mainly because he got to audition with a full big band instead of going solo in front of a few band officials.

"And at that time, it was the best band I'd ever played with, and that gave me a real charge," he says. "We even did a Buddy Rich tune, which you just don't do in high school."

Macomber played in Air Force rock and jazz bands in Illinois and then in Japan, where he met his wife. Wanting to return to the U.S., Macomber went to 'Travis when the base needed a percussionist. But for all his experience, accomplishments and personality, Macomber clearly isn't comfortable owning the spotlight. Here he sits, though, trying to drum something up for a few hundred sleepy kids.

His solo starts slowly, almost hesitantly, as he passively drags the sides of his sticks along the edges of his crash cymbals. He reaches up to lightly tap the cymbals, and he's so cautious with his movement that the kids have drawn to a still hush.

Just when you think Macomber is about to explode across the drums, he simply looks up, smiles and waves, charming half the girls in the grandstands. Macomber hasn't played a thing and he's already won over the entire student body.

Sure enough, though, he does play. And you can see the hours at his practice pad pay off before your eyes, his hands moving like pistons, his arms perfectly still, as he pushes his snare drum roll up to a machine-gun flurry. Then as he moves to the cymbals, crashing from one side to the next, the students go wild. Some are whistling or shouting "You go!" and other encouragements.

Everyone is clapping. Everyone, that is, except Mr. Cottham, the school's physical science teacher, who brings a noise meter to every assembly. He's standing dead center at the top of the bleachers, just waiting for an infraction.

Macomber eventually reaches a crescendo before the final crash, sending the crowd into a tizzy. From here on out, Galaxy can do no wrong. And when the show ends, more than two dozen kids rush to the floor to speak to band members and the recruiters. Some ask for autographs.

Joylyn Mix fills out a card for her bass-playing fiance. Brian Dubray, a 15-year-old sophomore, recognizes Macomber from his picture in Modern Drummer magazine and has him sign his yearbook. Freshman Stephanie Marie Allen praises Verlie Vigil for her dead-on take of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know." Dawn Kim Wilson, another freshman, tells a recruiter she wants to learn how to fly. Without exception, students seem stunned the Air Force can produce a band like Galaxy.

"I thought they'd all come out in white suits and play marching music," said 18-year-old senior Jeff Doyle. "I didn't know the Air Force could be so cool. It totally blows me away."

Kids are handing cards to Reichlein faster than he can take them. Even Darrell Baker, Galaxy's designated driver, wants to talk to him about becoming a recruiter.

If the look on his face is any sign, this is the best day of work Sgt. Mike Reichlein has ever had.

B ands in the civilian world start from countless seeds. Musicians meet musicians at clubs and music stores. Maybe a few school friends get together. Sometimes all it takes is a classified ad. Without exception, though, they all form naturally. And at least before money is involved, bands stay together because the musicians enjoy playing with each other. None of that applies to Galaxy or any other military band.

Though the military boasts some of the top musicians in the country, civilian or otherwise, nobody joins solely for the artistic challenge. It's a steady paycheck and a secure job, with benefits — all scarce in the civilian music industry.

The Air Force throws another bonus to musicians who manage to pass through auditions and written exams: Free gear.

When Matt Ascione committed to the Air Force, band officials essentially gave him a blank check to buy any musical equipment he needed. Ascione went to a music store in Washington, DC, and spent $9,000 on guitars, effects and amplifiers. He gets to keep it all — as long as he's in the military.

For every reason musicians join the military, though, each musician brings his or her own taste and direction. And while concert, marching and big-band units might never feel the effects, such disparity can devastate a jazz combo or rock band.

"The bottom line is you don't choose who you play with. It's a forced chemistry and you just have to deal with it," Chris Nelson says. "And if one person doesn't want to be there, it can really make it hard for everybody else."

Military rock bands only have limited control over where and what they play -- dictated on one side by the pop charts and on another side by a moral guideline. Bands might do a high school show, a 50th anniversary celebration and a party at the Officer's Club back-to-back.

"Kids want to hear Nirvana. But think about it — Curt Cobain? Not that the music isn't good, but Air Force bands just can't be connected to that message," Verlie Vigil says. "I never sing my favorite tunes in this band; I don't think we're playing anybody's favorite songs. We've got a drummer and bass player raised on fusion and a keyboard player raised on old-time rock 'n' roll and it's hard gluing all that together into a rock band."

Bands that somehow gel personally and creatively are inevitably ruined by turnover, a daily reality in the military. Musicians transfer, get new assignments or leave the military altogether.

Turnover has hit Galaxy hard. Nobody but Nelson has been with the band longer than a year. And until Matt Ascione signed up, Nelson had to play guitar while a French horn player from the concert band filled in on bass. Nobody in Galaxy believes the same five musicians will be a year from now.

"I do think this band will be pirated like it has in the past, because I think (Travis ban officials) will want us to be a band for a while," Vigil said. "But some people have their day of separation (re-enlistment opportunity) coming up, and I think it's a tossup whether they're going to stay or not."

Vigil counts herself among the tossups. She and Miguel Gomez met and married while in the same military band program in Germany. Vigil transferred to Travis a year ago and, though they'd already separated as a couple, she personally requested Gomez when Galaxy needed a keyboard player.

Their 4-year-old daughter, Sarahgrace, has been in day care since infancy.

"Every job we do, every town, I wonder if it's worth being an absentee parent," she says. "I hope giving her the extended family at least takes up some of the slack for me not being there all the time. But she's getting to that age where if I don't start being around her more and giving her a real strong parental figure, she'll start developing that gang-mall mentality."

Touring doesn't build her faith. From town to town and school to school, she sees teenagers who look lost. Then she thinks of Sarahgrace. Still, she never calls her from the road, for fear that only hearing a voice would do Sarahgrace more harm than good.

"I think it's harder for her than it is on me," she says. "Then I come home and she gets clingy and I feel guilty. And when I see these kids . . . well, I just know I have to be there for her."

Ten of the 13 Air Force band programs are in the continental U.S., and all have rock groups. None, though, rivals the rockers at Robins AFB in Georgia for sheer muscle. Among other histrionics, Robins' rock band tours with five trucks and a $150,000 light show designed by Reba McEntire's lighting technician.

That kind of firepower doesn't come from the national defense budget, but from money confiscated during Drug Enforcement Agency arrests. To get that money — Travis' lighting rig came directly from DEA money — military bands have to weave anti-drug messages into their programs. Merging the anti-drug and recruiting programs, though, doesn't come without friction.

"If we're doing anti-drug shows, we need to be in the elementary schools. For recruiting, we need to be in the junior colleges," Miguel Gomez says. "We're not doing any good in the high schools."

Others within the band pro-gram aren't as pessimistic, though there seems to be unanimous concern for defining the rock bands' role — where and how they're most effective. Musicians and recruiters say they have better luck in small, remote communities, where kids have fewer diversions, job prospects and entertainment options. Some bands turn to hip-hop and rap to win kids over.

Effective or not, there's no sign the Air Force plans retiring its rock bands. Indeed, tomorrow's Air Force generals are now colonels in their late 30s to 40s — people who grew up listening to rock 'n' roll.

"Rock music is screaming and posturing and sometimes you make it on looks, and I don't think we have any of that going for us. If we tried, I think we'd lose all credibility with the kids," Verlie Vigil says. "But here I am, 34 now — twice these kids' age — and trying to bring myself down to their level. I'm listening to their music and wondering 'Is this what they're really thinking?' We're struggling to reach them, but it's a hard thing to tap into their minds at this crucial time in their lives."

Reedsport, is even more depressed and depressing — than Florence, 25 miles to the north. There's no tourism to bring new faces and money, no place of obvious comfort, charm or attraction. If you want anything to eat after 9 p.m. on a weeknight, you have to try Dairy Queen or the deli section at Safeway.

And where Siuslaw High School radiates optimism, an earth tone hangs over Reedsport High. Maybe it's just the time of morning or that the rain flickers on and off like a touchy light switch.

As 17-year-old senior Chris Sharp sees it, there are only two things for boys to up there: "Play football or get drunk." The boys might be doing a bit of both these days — the Reedsport High Braves have started the season 0-3.

Galaxy is thankful for one thing: Reedsport High has a real auditorium with a real stage. Despite blowing two power amps at soundcheck the night before, the sound out front is sure to be better than it was the day before in Florence.

The show, though, gets off to a bad start before it starts. The kids laugh when Vice Principal Jake Caughell strings "Air Force," "Galaxy" and "rock band" into the same sentence. Then, as the band gets past the intro to "Only Want to be With You," Chris Nelson's bass cuts out. And unbeknownst to anyone else, nobody on stage can hear the singer. Nelson solves the bass guitar mystery mid-song by plugging the back end of his chord to his amp.

Not that any kids notice. Some haven't quite opened their eyes this morning. Sgt. Reichlein introduces himself to kids as "a local boy" and invites them to his office for a free soda — "just not all at once." Nobody laughs.

Far funnier, it seems, is the mere thought that Galaxy is attempting Green Day. Undaunted, Miguel Gomez grabs the microphone stand in faux rebellion, swinging it slightly as he sings. Only a few kids respond in kind, pumping their heads up and down.

Dean Macomber's drum solo is again the high point of the set, starting simply and awkwardly with a smile and wave and building to an arm-flying cymbal washout. Predictably, it draws a curtain of hoots and whistles.

Verlie Vigil takes over the microphone for a sterling version of "Kiss From a Rose." When the applause dies down, she lets the noise level drop to nearly nothing before going into her requisite speech.

She stresses staying in school and off drugs, getting a diploma and thinking seriously about their futures. Then she pauses, sensing she's testing the students' interest and attention span. She tries not to show it, but the stillness from the seats slices through her like a blade. The next two or three seconds are excruciatingly quiet.

But as Vigil turns around to the band, signaling to start the next song, something extraordinary happens. Out of nowhere, 15-year-old Paul Froats bolts upright from his seat, raises his fist in the air and breaks the silence.

"GALAXY RULES!!"

Vigil whips around, her jaw open. Matt Ascione's eyes are wide as sand dollars. Froat's classmates, equally surprised by Froat's gesture, erupt in applause and laughter. The tension that had filled the auditorium has thinned in one breath from a sophomore's mouth.

Things only get better from there the rest of the tour. Students in Brookings, Ore., fill out more contact cards than in Reedsport and Florence combined. Galaxy makes its greatest impression in Crescent City, despite having to cut its second set short when two girls get into a fistfight.

"I have a totally different outlook on the Air Force. Totally different," said Paul Froats, the fist-pumping sophomore at Reedsport.

"I thought they'd be tooting their horns in a little parade or something. But then they come out here and rock," he added. "I was hoping they'd even stage-dive. That would have been rad. But 'Go Air Force!,' that's what I say. Galaxy Rules! And I mean that."