A documentary on the nameless musicians behind the stars - the people in the touring and/or studio bands of major stars. Shows the highs and lows, the pros and cons, how some of them got where they are and their lives as hired guns.

An interesting documentary on rock music's unsung heroes. For every famous, successful artist there's dozens of musicians who played on studio albums or performed in the bands of the famous artist, with little to no recognition. This documentary does a good job of empathising with and highlighting the skills, trials and tribulations of the sideman.

Wasn't always that promising though: started off pretty dully, with a heap of (largely metal) musicians trying to out cheerlead each other. The first bit focuses mostly on how they got their big break and while there are some really interesting, even historic moments (e.g. the guitar solo on Steely Dan's 'Peg" and the drum fill on John Cougar Mellencamp's 'Jack and Diane'),involved it just seems pretty conventional. Moreover, you feel like you've seen this before - '20 Feet From Stardom' and 'Standing In The Shadows Of Motown' already covered the life and influence of backing musicians.

However, in the second half it gets really interesting and engaging. Now we see what touring life is like and how expendable these musicians are. It's quite sad how they are treated and how things turn out for some of them.

The latter half also shows why, despite the insecurity and treatment, these guys still do what they do - the love of music. This leaves the ultimate note a positive one.

Here's the part this movie leaves out -- if you were REALLY that good, you'd have your own band and sell a gazillion recordings.

Session musicians are technically and consistently good players BUT they have no soul. They are not unique. They are Campbell's soup. They play the note but are not interesting.

This flick is self serving. All these dumb session musicians try to take credit for the hits. What a bore.

Fantastic interviews, freaking amazing people being interviewed and an excellent focus on the subject matter.

I knew a lot of those names going in to this, but there were more that I didn't know. I thought that was great, getting to "meet" new people. I found out a lot about some people I had heard of, too, for instance: I knew who Jason Hook was because I've been listening to 5FDP since they started; but I didn't know his history, so it was cool seeing how he's a regular blue-collar guy at heart.

In fact, that was the coolest takeaway for me, I think, was seeing how all these guys, despite their incredible and somewhat arcane skills, really are blue-collar-"working for a living" folks just like me.

My favorite takeaway tho, is that Liberty Devitto is clearly one of the coolest mofoss on the planet in addition to being a kick-ass drummer. I wanna hang out with him, buy him a beer or something. If I thought he'd get any money from it, I'd go buy Billy Joel's entire catalog right now (relax; I know he wouldn't).

Truly worthwhile, IMO, if you are a musician or just love music. Again, 10/10 rating from me.