Mojo - The Music Magazine

At first glance, the premise of Thomas Tull and David Guggenheim's feature-length film is a bit of a gamble: lock three globe-straddling guitarists in a vast hangar, surround them with the tools of their trade, roll the camera and see what happens. After all, who wants to watch 90 minutes of rich rock star back-slapping or, worse, natter about plectrum gauges? But what saves It Might Get Loud from becoming an axe-noodle circle-jerk is its desire to voyage beyond the fretboard, and discover how music galvanized these three thoroughly obsessed individuals.

Although this is not, technically, a history of Led Zeppelin, U2 and The White Stripes, fans of all three bands will find much of the footage fascinating. Whether it's The Edge explaining his obsession with effects (it's a quest for "clarity", apparently) or Jimmy Page revisiting Headley Grange to discuss capturing the drum sound on When The Levee Breaks, there are sonic nuggets a-plenty. At first, White veers away from straight-to-camera interviews, instead attempting to bestow his love of the blues on a young boy representing his nine-year old self. It's only later, when we watch him listening to his favourite ever record (Son House's Grinnin' In Your Face), that his love affair with his 1950s Kay Hollowbody begins to unfurl.

We regularly hop back to the meeting in L.A. where the trio jam one of their greatest hits - witness Page giving U2's I Will Follow some bottom-end grit and Edge returning the favour by adding twinkling slide to In My Time Of Dying. Songwriting is as much to the fore as axe-heroism, a point White rams home when Dead Leaves And Dirty Ground is stripped back to its porch-blues basics.

The best moments come when their guards are down and a childlike enthusiasm for the sound of the guitar is ignited. The grin plastered across the faces of The Edge and White when Page, standing only a few feet away, launches into Whole Lotta Love, is priceless, as is the second when they realise they've been playing the wrong chord during a cover of The Band's The Weight. And anyone who doesn't delight in watching an enraptured Page air-guitaring to Link Wray's Rumble is surely made of, er... lead.

Ostensibly representing three eras of music-making, there are similarities that bond what White calls (a little pompously) "this family of storytellers". Each experienced his own Damascene moment: Page, when vowing never to return to the session musician treadmill after a particularly soulless muzak booking; The Edge discovering punk as the antidote to the sapping novelty schlock shown weekly on Top Of The Pops; Jack upon discovering how to invite a 21st Century audience into his world of 1930s outlaws. Each has never looked back.

If anything, the film doesn't have enough of the trio in conversation, instead preferring to amble back to their beginnings, but perhaps the DVD will provide the full, unedited chat. Guitarists will relish the exchange of knowing smiles as licks are exchanged, but when the camera pans out leaving them sitting around a coffee table, acoustic guitars in hand, one simple message rings out - they just love, love, love the sound.

Ross Bennett

It Might Get Loud is showing on screens across the US now. The film's UK theatrical release date is still to be confirmed.

For more information, head over to the official site HERE.