“The Last Dinner Party’s Grand Performance
3Olympia, Dublin
★★★★★
The popular indie band The Last Dinner Party has indeed had an eventful year, painting the music arena with their effervescent charm of petticoats. Having started 2024 with an explosive popularity, they blended the influences of The Cure and Florence & the Machine to imbue their music with a vibrant twist. Their intricate image is reminiscent of a Jane Austen-inspired punk-pop motif in the vein of Kate Bush in the Wuthering Heights video.
A London-based quintet, their unique name is derived from a concept of a grand indulgent feast where people congregate for a lavish celebration. Their journey, however, has been speckled with instances of potential disaster. Controversies loomed over their sophisticated backgrounds, the complexities of the English societal hierarchy, and the uncertainty surrounding five fresh university graduates devising such an incredible fusion of music and fashion independently. Doubts were raised online about the possibility of male strategists orchestrating the entire band.
However, the release of their debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, dismissed all skeptics. The album shone brilliantly on stage, particularly on the electrifying second night of their back-to-back shows at the 3Olympia Theatre in Dublin where they performed with ecstatic fervor, gowned in imaginative attire.
Presented at the 3Olympia theatre, The Last Dinner Party offered an exciting plunge into their hit indie goth pop.
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The UK based band, The Last Dinner Party, had to put a halt to numerous gigs due to sickness. Nonetheless, the lead singer, Abigail Morris, and the rest of the team showed no signs of struggle as they initiated their performance with the lively Burn Alive. The song, similar to a blazing chandelier, is fuelled by Morris’s dynamic vocals that resemble Wagner’s mosh-pit singing style. The song gets increasingly intense, akin to an active volcano on the brink of eruption.
Morris’s charismatic appeal is evident throughout the performance, her personal energy drives the latest track, Caesar on a TV Screen. Further into the show, she demonstrates her remarkable vocal range during a haunting version of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game.
However, The Last Dinner Party’s magic is not solely a product of Morris’s efforts. Their keyboard player, Aurora Nishevci, showcases her talent by leading the vocals on Gjuha, a tune that invokes Enya and symbolises her Albanian roots. Emily Roberts also shines in her unique apparel of fairy wings and heavy-duty trainers, skillfully playing a signature St Vincent guitar to infuse an indie-disco edge to the full-bodied melodies.
All the songs have an uncanny fun-house mirror property. You can perceive the influences on The Last Dinner Party, but they are reflected in fascinatingly strange ways. The essence of Freddie Mercury and Lana Del Rey can be identified in Beautiful Boy. This is reinforced by the fact that Roberts has had a short stint in a Queen tribute band. Furthermore, the dark-academia trend that Taylor Swift tapped into for her Tortured Poets Department album is notable in Portrait of a Dead Girl.
The Last Dinner Party has a surplus of emotional turmoil to impart. Morris broaches the subject of Catholic trauma while she introduces their stomping track My Lady of Mercy, a journey into relishing both religious joy and suffering that finishes with a falsetto-led hook that explodes like a fiery riff.
The encore starts with Morris surprising the audience by showing up in one of the Olympia boxes and serenading some petrified fans with The Killer. A fan requests a rendition of Sparks’ This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us, which the band obliges and plays impromptu.
The group concludes the concert with their top song, Nothing Matters. This epic ballad, reminiscent of feverish Bridgerton binge watching, takes on a more commanding presence as Morris belts out the chorus as if dancing with lightning atop a rooftop.