Skip to main content
Music Radar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
  • Guitars
  • Amps
  • Pedals
  • Drums
  • Synths
  • Software
  • Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Recording
  • Buyer’s guides
  • Live
  • DJ
  • Advice
  • Acoustic
  • Bass
  • About us
  • More
    • Reviews
Magazines
  • Computer Music
  • Electronic Musician
  • Future Music
  • Keyboard Magazine
  • Guitarist
  • Guitar Techniques
  • Total Guitar
  • Bass Player
More
  • How to make an AI cover song
  • 84000+ free music samples
  • Foo Fighters' new drummer
  • Ken Scott on recording The Beatles
  • First EVH Jump synth recording

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

  1. Home
  2. News
  3. Total Guitar

10 great air guitar moments

By Total Guitar
published 26 September 2012

Time to strap on your finest invisible axe

Radiohead
Creep
(Image credit: Dennis Kleiman/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

Radiohead

Some songs are ear-worms, some have profound lyrics, and some have points where it is physically impossible not to break out the air-axe and rock out like you're headlining Wembley Stadium. Here for your headbanging pleasure are some of the greatest air guitar moments ever...

Radiohead - Creep

Grannies. Toddlers. Amazon tribespeople. There’s literally nobody on the planet who doesn’t don a phantom Telecaster and do the pre-chorus crunches at 0:57 and 2:00.

Not bad, given that Jonny Greenwood had included them as an act of self-sabotage. “That’s the sound of Jonny trying to f*** the song up,” explains Ed O’Brien. “He tried spoiling it... and it made the song.”

Watch:

Page 1 of 10
Page 1 of 10
Aerosmith
Walk This Way
(Image credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Corbis)

Aerosmith

You’ll try to fight it, but that stuttering riff contains a subliminal message that forces your mouth into a leery pout, your crotch to buck and your hand to thrash an imaginary Les Paul. In your mind, you’re the lost Toxic Twin. To everyone else, you look like a bank clerk swatting a wasp in rush-hour traffic.

Watch:

Page 2 of 10
Page 2 of 10
The Knack
My Sharona
(Image credit: Janet Macoska / Sunshine/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

The Knack

Trickier than it sounds to actually play, The Knack’s staccato über-riff is the perfect choice for the bachelor with the cricket bat, the full-length mirror and the drawn curtains. Just thinking about it is making TG bob our heads like demented pigeons.

Watch:

Page 3 of 10
Page 3 of 10
Sex Pistols
God Save The Queen
(Image credit: Bettmann/CORBIS)

Sex Pistols

Gawd bless her and all that, but Steve Jones’ palace-storming powerchord intro riff fills us with so much anti-establishment venom that we have to channel it into air guitar to stop us from assaulting a Beefeater. 35 years later, it’s still the sound of anarchy spilling bedlam’s pint.

Watch:

Page 4 of 10
Page 4 of 10
The Who
Pinball Wizard
(Image credit: Neal Preston/CORBIS)

The Who

Specifically, that deathless moment at 0:25, when Pete Townshend’s flamenco-ish acoustic strumathon is interrupted by that hairy-chested electric stab. Disclaimer: do not attempt the windmill in enclosed spaces or china shops.

Watch:

Page 5 of 10
Page 5 of 10
The Darkness
I Believe In A Thing Called Love
(Image credit: Jason Nocito/Corbis)

The Darkness

Be honest: who among us hasn’t shoehorned themselves into a leotard, star-jumped off the washing machine and mimed that thrilling light- speed pull-off section at the 3:00 mark? Yeah, you have. We were watching you through the letterbox.

Watch:

Page 6 of 10
Page 6 of 10
Blur
Song 2
(Image credit: Jon Ragel/Corbis)

Blur

Even Graham Coxon admitting in TG227 that it’s mainly the bass “going through one of those little plastic Marshall amps” can’t ruin our scissor- kicking theatrics when that brittle ascending riff kicks in. The delusion is so complete that we even stamp on an imaginary RAT pedal at 0:15.

Watch:

Page 7 of 10
Page 7 of 10
Feeder
Buck Rogers
(Image credit: Laurent Gillieron/epa/Corbis)

Feeder

As invigorating as a bucket of water over a sleeping drunk, the moment at 0:25 when Grant Nicholas’s guitar almost literally explodes would make your great uncle Reginald flail at thin air. And he’s been dead for five years.

Watch:

Page 8 of 10
Page 8 of 10
Metallica
Battery
(Image credit: Henry Ruggeri/Corbis)

Metallica

Once the Mexican restaurant intro is out of the way and the galloping section drops at 1:10, Battery takes a battering, with each of us baring our teeth à la Hetfield, growling the lyrics, and down- picking furiously like a dog with a case of fleas. You look ridiculous, of course. But it feels so damn good.

Watch:

Page 9 of 10
Page 9 of 10
Led Zeppelin
Stairway To Heaven
(Image credit: Neal Preston/CORBIS)

Led Zeppelin

“No Stairway!” screamed the semi- ironic signs in 70s guitar shops, and it’s a cry echoed by your partner when that glorious first phrase of Page’s fruity solo kicks in on the Homebase Tannoy and you start plank-spanking like you’re onstage at Madison Square Garden. Great to hear and play. Arguably even better to mime.

Watch:

Page 10 of 10
Page 10 of 10
Total Guitar
Total Guitar
Social Links Navigation

Total Guitar is Europe's best-selling guitar magazine.

Every month we feature interviews with the biggest names and hottest new acts in guitar land, plus Guest Lessons from the stars.

Finally, our Rocked & Rated section is the place to go for reviews, round-ups and help setting up your guitars and gear.

Subscribe: http://bit.ly/totalguitar

More about guitars
PRS SE Silver Sky Maple

PRS expands its John Mayer signature SE Silver Sky lineup with new maple fretboard options and fresh finishes

Epiphone Emily Wolfe Sheraton Stealth

Emily Wolfe and Epiphone team up for the classy 'White Wolfe' signature Sheraton, finished in Aged Bone White

Latest
Josh Gudwin

Producer and engineer to the stars Josh Gudwin: “I got a call from Scooter Braun and he’s like ‘I need you to go to Colombia to get Justin Bieber on this remix’”

See more latest ►
Most Popular
Nita Strauss steps in the ring and delivers a knockout guitar solo in heavyweight new single Victorious

By Jonathan Horsley6 June 2023

"The way that we're doing it now feels kind of fresh to me, it feels like it's a High Flying Birds song, almost" – Noel Gallagher defends his Joy Division cover and issues a challenge to brother Liam

By Rob Laing6 June 2023

Should musicians be goggle-eyed for Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Air, Mac Studio and Mac Pro?

By Ben Rogerson6 June 2023

Best Fender amps 2023: From all-tube classics to cutting edge modelling options

By Richard Blenkinsop6 June 2023

5 of the best free guitar amp simulator plugins

By "OSC" Steve6 June 2023

Watch a teenage Josh Freese appear in a promo video for Simmons electronic drums

By Stuart Williams5 June 2023

Danny Carey reveals the Tool songs he finds most difficult to play live

By Stuart Williams5 June 2023

How Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head was written in a couple of hours and took most of its sounds from the Korg Triton

By Ben Rogerson5 June 2023

Score significant savings on Strats, Teles, Jaguars and Mustangs as Thomann slashes the price of popular Squier models

By Daryl Robertson5 June 2023

10 of the best new free plugins we discovered this month

By Matt Mullen5 June 2023

Choose a genre and BPM and this online DAW will use AI to make a complete track for you

By Ben Rogerson5 June 2023

  1. plugins
    1
    10 of the best new free plugins we discovered this month
  2. 2
    Score significant savings on Strats, Teles, Jaguars and Mustangs as Thomann slashes the price of popular Squier models
  3. 3
    Should musicians be goggle-eyed for Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Air, Mac Studio and Mac Pro?
  4. 4
    How to make an AI cover song with any artist's voice
  5. 5
    Behringer launches the Moog-esque Edge and Spice synths and hits back at “all the critics who claim that we’re driven by profit”
  1. jon hopkins
    1
    Jon Hopkins spent 4 months perfecting the synth riff for Open Eye Signal on a 1979 Korg MS-20: “So much effort into trying to make something sound effortless”
  2. 2
    10 of the best new free plugins we discovered this month
  3. 3
    Watch Noel Gallagher use a Fender Strat for High Flying Birds’ “blasphemous” cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart
  4. 4
    Score significant savings on Strats, Teles, Jaguars and Mustangs as Thomann slashes the price of popular Squier models
  5. 5
    Propellerhead’s ReBirth is reborn as a hands-on hardware synth, and it’s all thanks to Look Mum No Computer

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.