It’s often hard to keep up with all of the Dewaele brothers’ various musical incarnations, and indeed this tour DVD documentary goes to lengths during its intro to detail the differences between Soulwax (“the rock band”), 2manydjs (the Dewaele brothers spinning other people’s records) and Nite Versions (“the rock band playing dance reworkings of ‘Any Minute Now’ tracks in homage to Duran Duran’s extended remixes of the same title”).
Filmed at over 120 shows across Europe, Japan, the USA, Latin America and Australasia, this 69 minute tour documentary by young director Saam Farahmand aims to illustrate the various essential differences between the Dewaele’s various different outfits, as well as the logistics involved in packing it all into their ‘Radio Soulwax’ mini-festival format. Those who enjoyed Soulwax’s highlight performances at the Big Day Out and V Festival a couple of years back, and Parklife just recently, will already have some idea of the surprising power behind their live show, and indeed, it’s not so odd to hear Stefan quote both Kyuss and Masters Of Reality as influences here.
While the plentiful (and often fearsomely loud) live footage of both the Nite Versions and 2manydjs is impressive enough, much of the real ‘meat’ here comes in the form of contributions from collaborators, friends and tourmates such as Peaches, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Nancy Whang, Justice, Erol Alkan and Tiga. Given that the Dewaeles come across as typically chilled-out, polite Belgians throughout, it’s just as well that their friends’ observations and amusing anecdotes scratch the surface and prevent this from just becoming an hour of tour bus footage and long shots of roadies loading into venues. Indeed, one of the biggest highlights here is often finding out about the amusing origins behind ‘NY Excuse’ and seeing 2manydjs stage a mid-set promoter meltdown just to heighten the dramatic tension.
Alongside the main documentary feature, you also get an additional hour of live Nite Versions tour footage, headspinningly compiled from over 100 venues (using just a single camera), audio commentary and ten minutes of bonus outtakes, making this an excellent DVD that should appeal outside Soulwax’s sizeable fanbase.


















To post a comment, you need to be logged in.
If you've already registered login now, otherwise create a new account now.
Facebook member?
You can use your Facebook account to sign up and log in to inthemix.