Thank You For Clapping


Dingwalls, London (UK)
29 March 2001

16hp at Dingwalls 16hp at Dingwalls

The cleaners couldn't believe the devastation that lay before them. Chandeliers had crashed, optics were smashed, chairs were embedded in the walls, tables lays in pieces around the Camden Dingwalls's perimeter and glass shards littered the floorspace. A drum kit, guitars, mandolins, accordions, violins, a double bass and banjos are stacked neatly in one corner. Cyclone Horsepower had just struck London.

The sheer natural power emanated from the foursome is as destructive as it is creative. Promoting their live album Hoarse, 16 Horsepower play an entrancing and dirty mix of Southern swamp blues and Appalachian folk. In such an intimate environment, one could be forgiven for thinking that they could communicate with this band but no. Spitting with a deep rooted and furious torment, singer David Eugene Edwards rarely addresses the audience during the show but mutters and headbutts his mic like a man possessed.

The crowd tumble around the venue's annoyingly-placed steps and stairs, as 16 Horsepower tear through a lengthy set, encompassing tracks from each of their albums. Exhausted and purified, the band exit the stage with a polite acknowledgement of the crowd's participation in this mass exorcism. Never before and never again will Dingwalls host such an anguish-laced performance played through such an array of instruments.

by Nathan Hull

  • Before Cyclone 16 Horsepower played their anguish-laced performance Nathan Hull did an interview with David Eugene Edwards. If you'd like to read it, click here.
  • And here you can read another review by English magazine: New Musical Express.
  • Setlist:

    American Wheeze
    I seen what I saw
    Wayfaring Stranger
    Cinder Alley
    Straw Foot
    Clogger
    Harm's Way
    Haw
    Poor Mouth
    Praying Arm Lane
    Burning Bush
    Splinters
    ======
    Silver Saddle
    Phyllis Ruth
    24 Hours



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