DVD REVIEW: IT MIGHT GET LOUD

This fascinating love story to the electric guitar opens with White Stripes mainman Jack White hammering some nails and a pickup into a hunk of wood, plugging it into an amp and playing a few notes before saying “See, you don’t need to buy a guitar!". It's inspiring stuff and an ingenious way to start this journey off - a journey for the 3 leads, and for the viewer.

The movie follows White, Jimmy Page & U2’s The Edge as they converge for nothing less than a guitar maestro’s summit. Each player’s personal and musical quirks are fully explored and some interesting – if occasionally affected (Is White really that wilfully eccentric or is he playing the role to the hilt?) – truths are divulged along the way.

Page talks of dynamics and light n’ shade, “whispering to the thunder”, while The Edge is more preoccupied with using technical effects to achieve the sound which is in his head. White states he is “going to trick the others into teaching me all their tricks” and talks of wanting his guitar playing “to be a struggle”.

Three more disparate characters you would be unlikely to put into a room, yet their obvious enthrallment and rapture with the instrument and music in general is the common thread which ties them together.

Their personal histories are all explored, and along the way the stories of these three stars are revealed on a very personal level. Similarities are discovered, connections are made, creative sparks intertwine. You get the feeling that this meeting of minds and amps could have been a stilted or even catastrophic event, but somehow the personalities find common ground, recognise kindred spirits, and it works.

The most telling moment, of course, is when Page stands up and tears off the classic riff to ‘Whole Lotta Love’ – both Edge and White stop what they’re doing and manouver to a better vantage point, their faces betraying both their quest for knowledge and the childlike excitement of the quintessential fan.

When the three of them are goofing around (as much as three mega rock stars with a camera crew and forty people watching in a rented warehouse for a high profile movie CAN actually goof around), playing old tracks from their catalogues, and blues classics, they come into their own as musicians and the common thread intertwines to a perfect tapestry.

The music is the winner here, and there are some fantastic extras on the DVD that shouldn’t be ignored. As White says in the press conference on the extras, this isn’t a movie about just three guys playing live or talking together, there are so many things going on.

Highly recommended for all fans of rock music. Essential for all guitarists.

Shane Rockpit