It Might Get Loud
It Might Get Loud is mandatory viewing for any guitar aficionado that is worth his or her salt and for everyone else it’s a fascinating background sound check of three of rock’s greatest axmen. In 2008 on a spartan sound stage with subdued lighting, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) The Edge (U2) and Jack White (White Stripes, the Raconteurs) sat on comfy sofas and occasionally jammed between discourses on guitars and careers. Interestingly this meeting represents only a fraction of the footage but it’s the hub at which three fascinating careers meet. The real story is told in either pre or post production as each gives up some tasty morsels about music and their bands that are now institutions. Music fans will delight in voluminous and unique footage that includes a fifteen year old Jimmy Page aspiring to be a biological researcher while interviewed on a TV talent show or The Edge pointing to the high school bulletin board where Gerry Mullins put up a note looking for the future U2 members or White in concert furiously oblivious to his blood spattered fingers and fret board. This trio represents the three ages of rock and roll with Page being the senior level (he hardly looks the part to represent “old age”) The Edge being middle age and White being youth and exuding the cocky hubris that the other two seem to have outgrown. How this particular triad was chosen from a world of standout guitarists is a mystery but the selection proves to be bountiful.