What Drives Us

Dir: Dave Grohl AMAZON PRIME

Tales from bands in transit. Although not necessarily in Transits.

If you’ve ever stuck your head into the toxic fug of a touring band’s van, you’d be hard-pressed to find any romance in between the crisp packets and fungal underwear. Unless you’re Dave Grohl, that is.

Having previously made a road-trip docu-series and album around the magic of the independent studio, here he focuses on the strains, intimacies, pitfalls and support structures of van touring, in interviews with the likes of Ringo, The Edge, Steven Tyler, Flea and St Vincent’s Annie Clark, alongside many early American punk bands. Despite too long spent on origin stories before the Ginsters wrapper really comes off and the scent of intestinally traumatised bassist kicks in (Clark recalls journeys in a “fart van” during the inevitable segment on flatulence; Ringo reveals The Beatles’ rule of owning your emissions), insights into the bonding familial closeness of the experience abound, not least in intimate footage from the Foo Fighters’ back-to-basics first tour.

Elsewhere Ian MacKaye’s potted history of the US touring circuit is invaluable, and DH Peligro of the Dead Kennedys’ harrowing and deeply moving tales of racism and drug addiction on the road deserve a documentary to themselves.

By the end, Grohl almost makes you dream of breaking down 12 miles out of Doncaster in a rustbucket held together with gaffa tape and bass strings. ■■■■■■■■■■