No band infuriates musos like the Foo Fighters. But no band other than the Foo Fighters could inspire a thousand amateur musicians to gather in a field in Italy to play “Learn to Fly” in the desperate hope that they could convince Dave Grohl and his pals to play a gig there.
As the saying goes, never hurts to ask. Or, in the case of wide-eyed dreamer Fabio Zaffagnini, to assemble the Rockin’ 1,000, the (lineup-wise) biggest band in the history of rock & roll, to do the asking for him. It’s the absurd, heartwarming story of feel-great music documentary We Are the Thousand, the kind of story that, once upon a time, Hollywood would have mangled as a subpar vehicle for a young Adam Sandler, then moved it to Duluth and changed the band to Foreigner because they’re cheaper. Instead, Rivaroli keeps what is already an incredibly pure story as sweet and charming as it needs to be, and in the process reasserts why the Foos are biggest rock band (saleswise) in the world today. More than that, it’s a film about rock as communion and community. Rivaroli doesn’t pick out a few sample players to follow, but instead bounces around the crowd, getting snippets and moments from the incredible diversity of Foo fans in the thousand. The bassists and plumbers, the drummers and IT consultants, the indie kids on guitar and the office worker granddads singing along.
It’s not a story that needs hiccups or traumas. It’s a film that inspires, that will make you want to try the silly, impossible, wonderful thing. It’s the movie that left smiles on the faces of the thousand, on the faces of the surprising number of people for whom they performed online and (in a wonderful coda) in concert. It’s a story about how easy it is to fix what’s not working if everyone pulls together. And it’s a story about how the Foo Fighters can bring the world together.
This article appears in June 3 • 2022.
