Guitar heroes in tune for "Loud" music documentary

Cast member Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin is interviewed as he arrives at a party following the premiere of the documentary "It Might Get Loud" during the Los Angeles Film Festival June 19, 2009.[Agencies]

LOS ANGELES  - "What's gonna happen? Probably a fist-fight," Jack White, the frontman with rock duo the White Stripes, mutters from the back of his limousine.

Prisoners being led to their execution seem only slightly more nervous. But the guitarist awaits a fate for which most rock fans would sell their souls to the devil: a summit with axmen, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and The Edge of U2.

The trio's private gathering on a Hollywood soundstage was filmed 18 months ago for a documentary, "It Might Get Loud," which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday before rolling out across North America.

The film, from Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"), focuses on the relationship each of the musicians has with his guitar. In individual segments, each returns to his youthful haunts, and fondly recall burgeoning love affairs with the tools of their trade.

The Edge walks the corridors of Mount Temple, the Dublin high school where U2 formed. In perhaps the film's most memorable scene, a grinning Page plays air guitar at his home as he listens to old Link Wray and Muddy Waters singles.

The three finally meet up for the aforementioned jam session, swapping war stories and trading licks on such tunes as Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" and U2's "I Will Follow."

SMACKDOWN?

Three different generations are represented. Englishman Page, 65, the slightly demonic blues appropriator who led the biggest band of the 1970s; Irishman the Edge, 48, the gadget-loving wizard in one of the biggest band of the last two decades; and American White, 34, a doggedly independent lo-fi adherent who is suspicious of modern technology.

"Technology is a big destroyer of emotion and truth," White says at the outset of the film. "That's the disease you have to fight in any creative field: Ease of use."

Cut to the Edge, almost lost in an electronic jungle of amplifiers, pedals and wires.

"I'm very interested in what hardware can do to an electric guitar sound," he says. "I love effects units. They've always pushed music forward."

It seems a smackdown is in the works, as Page sagely notes on his way to the jam session. "It's going to be very interesting. Very, very interesting. Both are really, really strong character guitarists."

But all swear that the summit went off swimmingly.

"We've all seen 'Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll' and know probably it's not a good idea to turn Jimmy's amp down," White joked, referring to the tense rockumentary featuring Chuck Berry and his weary protege Keith Richards.

Guggenheim said the casting process was simple. Page, the Edge and White were the only guitarists considered, and they quickly signed on.