After winning both the career-vindicating BBC Sound of 2024 award and the Rising Star gong at the Brits, South London’s The Last Dinner Party are a group absolutely in the right place at the right time. On the strength of just one major-label long-player spawning several viral hits, the five early-twentysomethings bounced aboard the Other Stage on Saturday afternoon to a field mind-meltingly packed with an estimated 50,000, who, it soon dawned, possibly knew those three big-hitters more than its parent album.
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In blazing mid-afternoon sunshine, and scheduled for a full hour’s performance, it was surely one of their toughest gigs so far, but Abigail Morris and her amigas (plus new drummer Casper) powered through with grace, gusto, great clobber, and irrepressible joie de vivre.
Their sartorial schtick hinted at the disparate influences in the TLDP mix: Morris, guitarist Lizzie Mayland and bassist Georgia Davies donned flowing floor-length magnolia gowns, which billowed in the fitful breeze, but must’ve been pretty roasting up there. Opening tune Burn Alive duly ushered in their baroque flavour, which almost recalled 1990s madrigal-mongers The Mediaeval Baebes crossed with classic 1970s Fleetwood Mac (very Stevie Nicks, in fact).
For third song, The Feminine Urge, a more glammy Britpop leaning emerged, arguably the band’s more accessible side, in keeping with keyboard player Aurora Nishevci and lead guitarist Emily Roberts’ look – the latter, in her medium-blue satin shorts suit, with matching hair bow and two-inch platforms, could’ve walked straight out of Bryan Ferry’s dreams circa 1973.
In a playful bark, Morris ordered everyone to “BE QUIET” for the flutey intro to Beautiful Boy, and thereafter forewarned there’d be “some more weepy ones now, to get them out of the way before all the dancing and sex later on.” True to their word, keyboardist Aurora Nishevci then introduced a moving Gjuha by noting its genesis in “my feeling ashamed for not knowing my mother tongue”.
Newer songs were more upbeat: Second Best rocked with The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Broadway take on ramalama glam, while The Killer, with Nishevci pumping an upright piano at the back, had a jauntily expansive Carole King groove, each boding well for Album Two.
Perhaps oddly choosing not to include their usual cover of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game, TLDP finally delivered their big festival moment with Nothing Matters, with its saucy “I will fuck you” chorus, which Morris and the majority of the assembled 50k bellowed gleefully, with massed arm-waving in the heat.
It took a while, but they got there.
SETLIST:
Burn Alive
Caesar On A TV Screen
The Feminine Urge
Beautiful Boy
On Your Side
Gjuha
Sinner Second Best
Portrait Of A Dead Girl
Mirror
My Lady Of Mercy
The Killer
Nothing Matters
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Picture: Jim Dyson/Getty