geezer

Five school friends form a garage band called The Magnetic Ant but when they all go off to college or to the army, they lose track of each other. It is more than forty years later when they reconnect online and start a weekly Zoom chat. Neil is in Thailand, Reggie and Jacques are in South Africa, Carlos is in Canada and Shawn is in the US. They are all in their early sixties, retired and the majority are quickly turning into grumpy old men, dissatisfied with life and regretful of having lost their childhood dreams. Neil, the kindergarten teacher who lives and works in Thailand, is the only one who has continued playing and writing music and he inspires the other four to take up their instruments again. Before long, they are all back in in it once more and their weekly chats are mostly about life and music – they all feel they have a new lease on life again – even their families can see the positive change in them.

On one such chat, Carlos takes out his guitar to show them a cool riff he has learnt. He starts playing and then goes into an old song the four of them last played when they were at school together, one of Neil’s own songs. Neil is moved because Carlos could actually remember the song. Immediately, Jacques takes out his iPad, opens up to some drum pads and starts playing along. Before long, all four are on their instruments playing the song together online. It is not perfect and there are out-of-sync moments but they all feel the magic and the nostalgia again. They finish in a flourish and remain silent for quite a while as they all come to the realization, the Magnetic Ant never died, it was just in hibernation.  

Neil takes the plunge and enters them into an AGT competition. With most of their families, they all meet up the night before the audition, not having played live together in more than forty years. Will the adventurous geezers pull it off or will the whole ridiculous idea simply blow up in their faces? I guess we’ll just have to see, …