Narc. Magazine Online
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Zeinab Lenton enjoys a night of heady theatrics and barnstorming rock and roll courtesy of The Last Dinner Party
Any last naysayers with the slightest of doubts about the popularity and impact of The Last Dinner Party would have had those doubts dispelled at the sight of the great, winding queue of concertgoers snaked twice over around the City Hall and nearby streets. A late opening of doors and a sold out show meant the streets around the venue were awash with flowing gowns, lace, corsets, ribbons: The Last Dinner Party are a band for whom style is just as important as substance and the audience had certainly dressed for the occasion.
Following support form Frankie Archer and Kaeto, the stage is readied for the headliner. The band have taken care to curate a very particular mis-en-scene: a light-lined multilevel platform; a Georges Melies, fin-de-siecle moon-and-cloud hand-painted backdrop (believe me, the compound descriptors are necessary!); goblets and bottles of wine placed carefully here and there; dramatic lighting; rousing classical music. The stage is set!
This sense of theatricality is vital to TLDP: the band arrive and take their places, each costumed to their own distinctive styles but somehow all gelling effortlessly. Together, six musicians on stage make a powerful impact: core band members Abigail Morris (lead vocals), Georgia Davies (bass), Emily Roberts (lead guitar, mandolin, flute!), Lizzie Mayland (rhythm guitar) and Aurora Nishevci (keyboards) are currently joined by drummer Rebekah Rayner.
The band open with Burn Alive, a brooding Gothic-tinged banger, with its imagery of bites, candle wax, blood and fire. It’s a compelling and spellbinding tale of masochism and degradation: “I am not the girl I set out to be”. Be in no doubt: The Last Dinner Party are not some flimsy lace-bound confection, they are the thorn on the rose that pricks you, the acrid tang of poison slipped into a nightcap.
Caesar On A TV Screen is an epic meditation on the allure and power of masculinity and its contrast, the vulnerability of femininity, specifically in the context of the music industry. With the track’s particular echoes of Imperial-era Queen, Roberts is a marvel, absolutely shredding on her guitar like some sort of Harijuku Brian May and she continues to astound throughout the evening.
Morris is a gifted and charismatic performer – the whirling, preening daughter of Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks and Heart’s Ann Wilson, she casts an immediate spell on the entire congregation. Like the very best frontpeople, she is closely attuned to her bandmates, weaving in around them, prowling up and down the raised stage. Early in the set, guitarist Lizzie Mayland takes to the mic to declare themselves a fellow Northerner (Hebden Bridge to be exact) and introduces a delicate and beautiful cover of 1970s folk artist Catherine Howe’s Up North. It’s the first of two covers, the second being an absolutely barnstorming version of Blondie’s Call Me.
On Your Side recalls Suede in their more contemplative moments, a brooding and poignant exploration of co-dependence, of that sense of being bound to someone that you know means calamity for you. Keyboardist Nishevci’s lead vocals on the haunting Gjuha, a Sufi-esque lament sung in Albanian (her “mother tongue”) provides for an arresting and emotional interlude that slides into the muscular and anthemic Sinner. Portrait Of A Dead Girl is perhaps a singular lull in the set, a swirling rock epic nonetheless. The Feminine Urge, Mirror and My Lady of Mercy showcase a band in full possession of a singular vision that has melded their vast and broad cultural influences into rare metal.
For the encore, the band return to stage in procession, like a strange and defiant funeral cortége, to send us on our way. It’s a fittingly ritualistic moment in a concert that has had the overwhelming feel of a sacred rite. New track It’s The Killer is a glam-rock stomper with a Rocky Horror glint in its eye, while show closer Nothing Matters is nothing short of a cathartic primal scream – of lust, of anguish, of ill-fated romance.
It should perhaps be mentioned that every single track has been accompanied by the audience, willing acolytes who know every breath, every line and intonation, and sing them back with reverence and frenzy. A Prelude to Ecstasy, indeed.
