Five of the most awesome band cameos in movies

THE YARDBIRDS – in Blow-Up (1966)

Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up has been engrossing and confounding viewers for more than a half century now. It is a suspense story about a high-fashion photographer in the mod London of the 1960s who may or may not have accidentally photographed a murder.

It was seen at the time as a prescient dissection of the way in which modern culture overstimulates the average consumer to the point that he no longer trusts his own senses to judge reality. The fashion and language of the film may give it a dated quality, but that message seems even more crucial today than it did in 1966.

At a key moment in the film, the hero (David Hemmings) is driving through London when he thinks he spots a young woman who may be involved in the murder upon which he has stumbled. He impulsively follows her into a club where a large group of young Londoners are standing still as can be while an unseen band digs into a blues groove out of the frame.

The music is clearly righteous, but the inertness of the crowd lends the entire thing a spooky, bloodless quality. As Hemmings moves through the crowd, the camera cuts to the band and we get our first look at them. Keith Reif begins singing “Stroll On.” Drummer Jim McCarty is barely visible behind him, but flanked on either side are Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar, Jimmy Page grinning away on bass, and off to Reif’s left, Jeff Beck.

Hemmings moves past the zombie-like crowd until Beck begins having feedback problems which will lead to him smashing his guitar a la Pete Townsend and flinging the broken hollow-body neck into the crowd, which ignites a riot. Hemmings ends up with neck and escapes the mob.

Through it all, the Yardbirds keep playing. It’s a wild, weird symbol of the way in which our reactions to popular stimuli are growing increasingly random and unpredictable. At least, that’s my take on it. As I said, Antonioni can mystify. But we can all agree that Yardbirds just plain rock.