The Docs of the Month cycle premieres ‘Rock per thousand’, an exciting documentary that recounts the birth of Rockin’ 1000, a band with 350 guitarists and 250 drummers
The coexistence of two guitarists in a rock group is never easy. And three are already a nightmare. In the band Rockin’ 1000 there are not two or three guitarists, but 350. There are also 250 drummers, 150 bass players, and 250 singers. And, occasionally, dozens of keyboardists, violinists and even pipers. Rockin’ 1000’s the greatest rock group that has ever walked a stage. And it all came from desire of a marine biologist to see the Foo Fighters perform in his city, Cesena, in northern Italy. The rather incredible story of the birth and consolidation of this mammoth gang is told in the documentary ‘Rock per thousand’ (‘We are the Thousand’), which this month premieres in Spain in the Docs del Mes cycle (and, as of Friday, on the Filmin platform).
Fabio Zaffagnini he’s one of those guys who has a particular gift for enlisting other people in his fantasies, no matter how crazy they seem. When he announced to his friends that he had devised a delusional plan to get the Foo Fighters to perform in Cesenaa town of 96,000 inhabitants, initially received the predictable looks of skepticism and jokes, but its enthusiasm ended up infecting everyone around it and beyond: the idea was gather a band of a thousand musicians to perform a Foo Fighters song live (‘Learn to fly’) and record a video clip that would attract the attention of Dave Grohl and his. A thousand rock fans (not Philharmonic musicians, mind you) playing a song in perfect synchronicity without fighting over volume or tuning? I don’t see it, Fabio.
But Fabio did see it. He set up an internet campaign to recruit musicians and raise money and convinced a bunch of people that such nonsense was possible. Among them, her friend Anita Rivaroli, a film student, who was commissioned to make the video clip that was to move the Foo Fighters. “I was one of the first people he talked to about this crazy idea,” explains Rivaroli. I didn’t have much experience as a director, so organize a camera crew to film 1,000 musicians on an area of land equivalent to a football field I thought it was too ambitious a challenge. Still, like so many others, I got carried away. A few weeks before the recording, I decided that I didn’t want to just film the performance, but explain the story of all those people who came to the call of Fabio, whom they didn’t even know, and who came together to help him make his dream come true”.
From 8 to 60 years
This is how the idea for the documentary ‘Rock per thousand’ was born. From then on, many things happened before Rivaroli’s cameras: hundreds of music fans from all over Italy, from eight-year-olds to executives over 60met at the Ippodromo Park in Cesena on July 26, 2015 and, under the musical direction of the hard-working Marco Sabius (which had a traffic light installed to work as a light clapperboard), they recorded a titanic version of ‘Learn to fly’; the video of the song, posted on YouTube with the aim of reaching a million views, multiplied in a few days that figure by 10 (today it goes for 60 million); Dave Grohl invited Fabio to attend a Foo Fighters concert in Walla Walla, a small city in the State of Washington, and finally, on November 3, 2015, the American band performed at the Carisport pavilion in Cesena.
Seeing you all singing our song was the greatest moment of my life. You caught us and we had to come & rdquor ;, Dave Grohl assured that night before starting the concert with, it could not be otherwise, ‘Learn to fly’, in a magical moment that could have been a wonderful closing for the documentary. But Anita Rivaroli was clear that the story he was telling was not that of a very famous group visiting a modest townbut something else somewhat different: “I wanted to investigate that superpower that music has to unite very different people each other and make them do things together that seem unimaginable –says the director of ‘Rock per thousand’-. That is what is truly extraordinary.”
Something similar must have been thought by the members of that ancient band that got together one day in Ippodromo Park. The emotion, satisfaction and happiness that this collective achievement brought them went far beyond being able to see the Foo Fighters live, so they looked for a way to continue it. And, with the help of Fabio and his team, they found a way: when the first anniversary of the recording of the video clip for ‘Learn to fly’ was celebrated, Rockin’ 1000, the biggest rock band in the world, gave its first concert on the RC Cesena football pitch (today renamed as Cesena Football Club).
Community and participation
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It is there, with the first notes of a monumental version of the ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ of The Verve, where Rivaroli decides to end the film. But the story continued. Fueled by the passion of each of its many (and ever-changing) members, Rockin’ 1000 has performed in recent years in cities like Florence, Paris, Frankfurt and Milan and, after a pandemic-forced hiatus, remains a troop active waiting for new conquests. “Rockin’ 100 is a rare example of how, from a good idea free of personal ambitions or economic interests, community and participation can be generated,” Rivaroli points out.
The premiere of ‘Rock per thousand’ in Spain (on Thursday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m., there will be a screening at the Girona cinemas in Barcelona followed by a discussion with Anita Rivaroli and Fabio Zaffagnini) takes place shortly after The sudden death of Taylor Hawkins, the drummer of the Foo Fighters, has plunged the group’s fans into dismay. And also, of course, the staff of Rockin’ 1000. “We are still in awe,” says the director of the documentary. Taylor was a very talented musician and an incredibly energetic person. We will miss him very much, but his music will be with us & rdquor ;. The power of music, once again.