This past Saturday, November 4th, the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection got a live preview of next year’s most anticipated album, Prelude to Ecstasy, at what very well might be remembered as a legendary show in the very near future. The album is the first full-length from hyper-buzzy London baroque pop five-piece The Last Dinner Party, who are currently being touted by certain corners of the industry as the next biggest band in the world. The album is set to drop February 2nd on Island Records, and the group were presently in the middle of their five-date, first-ever US tour. The show took place at Johnny Brenda’s, which is barely under half the capacity of the next smallest venue on the brief run (The previous performance took place at the 600-capacity Bowery Ballroom in NYC, and the following was at the El Rey Theatre in LA, which holds just under 800.) The hour-long set boasted 11 of the album’s 12 tracks, including most recent single, “On Your Side,” an atmospheric ballad which the band has characterized as, “A love song with its hands tied. It’s about being so devoted to someone that no matter what they do, no matter how much it hurts, how much you know you should leave, you can’t escape.”
Although The Last Dinner Party’s style – both sonically and sartorially – would assumedly attract this generation’s take on fans of Rasputina and The Dresden Dolls (and it did), being an XPN-sponsored event, it did draw out a number of elder suburbanites that would seem out of place amongst the evening of elegant debauchery. The band – vocalist Abigail Morris, keyboardist Aurora Nishevci, lead guitarist/flutist Emily Roberts, bassist Georgia Davies, and guitarist Lizzie Mayland – resembled a tastefully “adult” take on the Picnic at Hanging Rock girls, who had the audience enraptured from unreleased set opener, “Burn Alive.” However, it was halfway through, once they could finally sing-along, that they got really excited. The first single of the night came seven songs in, with “Sinner,” which is equal parts summertime jam and reimagining of a lost track from Beggars Banquet (The Last Dinner Party did open Hyde Park for the Stones in 2022.) The highlight (and fan favorite) of the evening, however, was undoubtedly “Nothing Matters,” the final song of the two-song encore, and the band’s debut single, whose chorus features the delightfully sing-alongable, “I will fuck you like nothing matters.”
