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Written by Kevin Renick Saturday, 19 September 2009 05:25

You don't need to be a guitarist or even a huge music aficionado to appreciate the soul searching and restless spirit on display here.

Being a guitarist, I had a particular interest in seeing this new documentary by Davis Guggenheim, the man whose previous film found Al Gore telling us "An Inconvenient Truth" about our environment.  What Guggenheim sets out to do in It Might Get Loud, a musical pow wow between guitarists Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge and multi-group axeman Jack White, is more about showcasing secrets of the creative aesthetic and the human beings behind a lot of our powerful rock & roll, rather than offering a primer on how to play electric guitar or anything so mundane.

It's a stronger film as a result, as the overall feel is one of just hanging out with some very interesting and charismatic gentlemen who happen to be legendary guitarists. Each man is shown in his hometown (Page in London, Edge in Dublin, White in Nashville); each, of course, plays samples of their guitar (yes, often very loudly); and each expresses something about their instrument and their feelings regarding their craft. "For anybody who's writing, it comes from the creative spark—and the process changes all the time," says a contemplative Page. "There's a type of concentration where you're pushing the boundaries, looking over the horizon..." Page, Edge and White are then shown performing a bit of the incendiary Led Zeppelin classic "In My Time of Dying," and it sparks up considerable power. Edge comes across as perhaps the most inquisitive musician, telling of how he and his fellow band members in U2 could barely play their instruments in the early days, but that hardly stopped them. "The thrill was just being able to DO it, even if you did it badly," he relates. A memorable edit shows him playing the long opening riff from "Where the Streets Have No Name," with its hypnotic repetitiveness, and segueing into a powerful performance of same at a typical sold-out U2 concert. Edge seems happy to have a chance to share the secrets of his art. "I got totally into playing and hearing the return echo—it was like hearing two guitarists instead of one," he explains as he plugs his axe into one of his trademark devices. "Suddenly everything changed."

White is easily the quirkiest of the three musicians, and provides some of the movie's most memorable moments. We see him testing out amplifiers on his farm as a startled cow looks on, explaining the colorful origins of the look of the White Stripes, and talking of how his sound was influenced by American blues singer Eddie James "Son" House. Whenever White or the others talk about an influence, we are helpfully shown a video sample of that artist's work. "Son House...spoke to me in a thousand different ways," White relates. "One man against the world, in one song." White also colorfully says his goal when playing guitar is to "pick a fight with it-and then win the fight." Page, the guitarist with the most fearsome reputation, has a gentle onscreen presence, but several clips are shown to remind us of what he accomplished with Zeppelin. He takes us on a quick tour of Headley Grange, the legendary estate where Zep laid down many of their classic songs—pausing to point out the corridor where John Bonham recorded the classic booming drum sound on "When the Levee Breaks." And when Page is shown smiling and nodding his head after putting on a single of Link Wray's classic "Rumble," a record notable for him because of its "profound attitude," it makes you want to run right out and pick up the disc yourself.

All three men come across as complex and yet down to earth—musicians who became bigger than they could have imagined just doing something they were driven to do. You don't need to be a guitarist or even a huge music aficionado to appreciate the soul searching and restless spirit on display here. "I drive myself crazy trying to get the sound I hear in my head to come out of the speakers," says The Edge at one point. Anyone who battles their own muse can relate to such sentiments. It Might Get Loud is an entertaining and welcoming look at three players who got very lucky engaging in that battle with the sort of musical armour that has helped chart rock history. | Kevin Renick