It Might Get Loud

It Might Get Loud. 2008, 2009 Sony Pictures Classics.
Featuring: The Edge, Jimmy Page, Jack White
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Available from Amazon as a standard DVD or on Blu-ray.
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Davis Guggenheim, who has directed such documentaries as An Inconveinient Truth and Waiting for "Superman", takes on a much less political topic here: the electric guitar. Highlighted here are The Edge from U2, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds, and the uncredited session guitarist on numerous mid '60s pop records, and Jack White from The White Stripes and The Raconteurs. All three guitarists discuss extensively their history as a guitarist: Page talks about his background in a childhood skiffle band, falling in love with the blues, working extensively as a session guitarist in the '60s, his time in the Yardbirds, and most famously, Led Zeppelin. The Edge discusses putting together a guitar with his brother Dik and reminisces about forming U2 during a visit to Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin. Jack White remembers growing up in southwest Detroit with a bedroom so filled with musical equipment that he had to get rid of his bed to make room for more instruments. White also discusses how it was considered "uncool" to be seen playing any kind of instrument in his predominantly Latino neighborhood, since many of his peers preferred hip-hop and house music to Jack's preference of rock and roll and old blues records.

During the film, Jimmy Page visits Headley Grange, where he and Led Zeppelin recorded their fourth album, taking time to describe exactly how they got the legendary drum sound for "When the Levee Breaks". The Edge demonstrates his playing technique, where he makes use of elaborate echo and delay effects to make it sound like there's a second guitarist onstage and in the studio. Jack White admits that he deliberately sets up obstacles creatively to force himself to write and perform that much harder.

At "The Summit", Page, White and the Edge get together to talk shop, play their favorite records, and jam. The three guitarists also show each other how to play "I Will Follow", "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground", and "In My Time of Dying" before getting out their acoustic guitars to perform a cover of "The Weight" by The Band. During this session, Page sheepishly admits that he can't join in on the high vocal harmonies in the song's chorus.

There's a lot of interesting footage here, and you will get enough archive footage of old U2, White Stripes, Raconteurs and Zeppelin concerts to be completely satisfied. Two scenes I enjoyed were Jack White putting together a homemade guitar out of a glass bottle, wire, and pieces of wood; and the visit to Jimmy Page's music room, where he still gets a big kick out of playing "Rumble" by Link Wray. Page plays air guitar and can barely contain his enthusiasm for the song, nearly fifty years after it was first released.

Highly recommended film!