Who
hasn’t wanted to be a rock star, join a band or play electric
guitar? Music
resonates, moves and inspires us. Strummed through the fingers of The
Edge,
Jimmy Page and Jack White, somehow it does more. Such is the premise of
It
Might Get Loud, a new documentary conceived by producer Thomas Tull.
It Might Get Loud isn’t like any other rock’n roll
documentary. Filmed through
the eyes of three virtuosos from three different generations, audiences
get up
close and personal, discovering how a furniture upholsterer
from Detroit, a studio musician and
painter from London and a seventeen–year–old Dublin
schoolboy, each used the
electric guitar to develop their unique sound and rise to the pantheon
of
superstar. Rare discussions are provoked as we travel with Jimmy Page,
The Edge
and Jack White to influential locations of their pasts. Born from the
experience is intimate access to the creative genesis of each legend,
such as
Link Wray’s “Rumble’s” searing
impression upon Jimmy Page, who surprises
audiences with an impromptu air guitar performance. But
that’s only the
beginning.
While each guitarist describes his own musical rebellion, a
rock’n roll summit
is being arranged. Set on an empty soundstage, the musicians come
together,
crank up the amps and play. They also share their influences, swap
stories, and
teach each other songs. During the summit Page’s
double–neck guitar, The Edge’s
array of effects pedals and White’s new mic, custom built
into his guitar, go
live. The musical journey is joined by visual grandeur too. We see the
stone
halls of Headley Grange where “Stairway to Heaven”
was composed, visit a
haunting Tennessee farmhouse where Jack White writes a song
on–camera, and
eavesdrop inside the dimly lit Dublin studio where The Edge lays down
initial
guitar tracks for U2’s forthcoming single. The images, like
the stories, will
linger in the mind long after the reverb fades.
It Might Get Loud might not affect how you play guitar, but it will
change how
you listen. The film is directed and produced by An Inconvenient
Truth’s Davis
Guggenheim, and produced by Thomas Tull, Lesley Chilcott and Peter
Afterman. |
