Thank You For Clapping


16 Horsepower - 16HPDVD review

by Erik van den Berg
from Dutch magazine OOR, issue 4, May 2005

Contains: Two DVD's full of interviews, videos, live recordings, backstage footage and special audio mixes.

Playing time: Circa 140 minutes.

What's there to be seen and heard: Many different things, the undefined magic that naturally hangs around the reverend Edwards and his music is captured strikingly: as a rule the camera is close upon him, whilst the Sixteen Horsepower videos always are stylish, sweltering and suggestive.

The interview with Edwards and drummer Jean-Yves Tola on disc 1, during which they react to catchwords, follows that style in a fitting arty way. The other interview, by wide-screen David Crosby-lookalike Paul Epstein and decorated with two songs rendered acoustically, is above all things thorough and in-depth. The chapter 1999-2003 sounds promising, but offers little: more (short) interviews and some live footage from 1993 and 1995. Coulisses too is only standard: grainy shots of Sixteen Horsepower backstage, on the road and in the tourbus.

Disc 2, again a hotchpotch, contains five videos (Haw, Black Soul Choir, Clogger, Splinters, Hutterite Mile), three live songs, a handful of Dolby surround mixes (with and without moving images) and a mini documentary (nice but it doesn't explicate much) about the concert at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on 23 March 2001, in which we follow the band again during their pre-gig rituals, soundchecking, eating, doing a photo shoot, waiting, lounging about, twiddling their thumbs.

Extras: None

Judgement: Entertaining and comprehensive package, but the really interesting parts would have easily fitted onto one DVD.

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