It feels very easy in the modern age to furrow your brow at any artist that gets really popular really quick, especially if it isn’t necessarily the kind of music you typically listen to, but after seeing The Last Dinner Party live we can confirm they’ve earned every bit of their success.
They’re not an industry plant, they’re just dead good.
Now, we accept that isn’t exactly top-tier analysis or music journalism from the off, but we’re hoping that this review of their recent Manchester gig at Victoria Warehouse and our sincere recommendation that you go and see The Last Dinner Party live for yourself will be all the vouching you need.
For starters, let’s talk about the supports.
We were sadly too late into the gig to catch the first warm-up act, Lucia and the Best Boys, but we did arrive in time to hear the applause as they left the stage and have been to enough concerts to know when a support act has genuinely surprised and/or impressed uninitiated listeners.
Having gone away and listened to them in our own time, we can see why they were chosen by the TLDP. There’s a familiar level of melodrama and that almost Victorian aesthetic to frontwoman Lucia Fairfull’s presence, style and floaty vocals, even if the whole band’s vibe isn’t exactly the same.
The Scottish outfit is arguably the more outright indie of the two, but when you combine them with the second support act and even more ethereal-sounding Kateo – who really did impress us not only with her performance and stage presence but her sheer range too – that alternative feeling comes through.
Between the two of them, it felt like the pair had been hand-picked by the headliners as genuine fans to cultivate a concert that also feels cohesive from start to finish, championing talented and aspiring artists who are trying to carve their own space not just within similar spaces but between genres.
This may not seem so uncommon but given how big the BRIT Award-winners have already gotten over the last year or so, they could have chosen more established or even regional acts for individual UK dates to win over audiences – but they didn’t. Make that anti-industry plant theory example number one.
And then we come to the matter of the 2024 Rising Stars themselves, who are clearly thriving and on top of the world but putting real effort into their live set beyond just playing the songs well.
For instance, we didn’t quite realise just how many impressive singers there are in The Last Dinner Party until we saw them take to that iconic Manchester stage and get truly rapturous applause as multiple band members took the spotlight for their own individual heroine moments.
Be it Lizzie’s cover of ‘Up North’ by fellow Halifax native Catherine Howe, Aurora’s haunting Albanian ballad or even just Emily’s genuinely shredding guitar solos, it was a reminder of just how versatile and multi-talented each of these lot are.
Don’t get us wrong, lead singer Abigail has all the charisma and style to knit them together in such a way that has no doubt helped make them such an instant hit, but they were full of surprises too.
The pseudo-medieval fantasy set, the orchestral entrance that is ‘Prelude to Ecstasy; the lighting, use of the stage and genuine rock-show moments (yes, they can thrash when they want to) – it was in seeing them in the flesh that we realised why so many have fallen in love with their music so hard and so fast.
Read more:
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Last but not least, following a week in which the five-piece have come under criticism not only for cancelling gigs last minute but due to men even being asked to leave the shows after they were quizzed on why they were there and how long they’d be following the band, it was refreshing to see that the climate of their crowd was nothing like it has been made out to be in some reports.
It’s worth noting that the band themselves came out to apologise for the treatment some male fans had received, insisting they were “appalled” by the incidents and that it was solely a venue issue, not anything to do with them.
Moreover, as a single male attending the gig, I can confirm we experienced nothing of the sort from security at Victoria Warehouse, and the room was as welcoming and carefree as you could hope for – not to mention all the tour tickets purchased have helped raise over £14k for food banks.
Perhaps there is an element of latent, underlying or covert sexism behind why some people have decided to take issue with the band whose members have various roots in good Catholic schools and have been accused of being ‘nepo babies’, but the plain truth is they’re just bloody good at what they do.
Creating a conspiracy around why a group of young women have become successful isn’t edgy, incisive or even an interesting theory – it’s embarrassing. Move on and just enjoy the music.
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Featured Images – The Manc Group
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