This is a pivotal set for The Last Dinner Party, on the Other Stage on Saturday afternoon at Glastonbury under a blazing sun. The London-based female five-piece’s rise has been meteoric – 15 months ago I saw them play in a windowless room above a pub in Camden, while last summer they performed in a far-flung tent at breakfast time on the Sunday. And here they are today, playing to a crowd of tens of thousands, with a No 1 album and a Brit Award under their collective belts.
I’d slightly expected their set to be this year’s Fred Again.. moment: a confluence of big crowd energy and beautiful weather during the DJ’s set on the same stage last year made it a fabled “Glastonbury moment” – a weird bit of Somerset alchemy that renders a performance bigger than the sum of its parts. Do The Last Dinner Party achieve this? No. It’s close at times and they brim with confidence. But too often, their set hovers where it could soar.
Perhaps my expectations are just a notch too high (a problem about which this much-hyped band are well aware). But the issue at this show – on surely their most high-profile stage to date – is the “bangers to ballads” ratio. There are too many of the latter, which causes things to lull among the festival crowd. In another album’s time, with more songs to choose from, they’d surely own this slot and bigger ones to boot. Indeed, there is an undeniable sense that big things might be on the horizon in the future.
The Last Dinner Party are a fantastic band: exciting, ambitious and talented. They play theatrical, post-punk baroque pop. Imagine a dash of Kate Bush with a dollop of Sparks and a sprinkle of Abba glam with a side order of Roxy Music, all bound together by the considerable prowess, poise and star wattage of frontwoman Abigail Morris. Relentless touring has honed them into a fine live act.
They take to the stage in their usual array of baroque clothing: flowing dresses with puffy sleeves, stack-heeled boots and bodices. “Caesar on a TV Screen” is all brooding theatricality as Morris twirls around the stage and guitarist Emily Roberts plays memorable guitar motifs. Beware timid-looking band members. Boy, does she shred. The ballads are undeniably lovely (Morris tells us to get our “crying out of the way” before we “get on to the dancing and the sex”), but big crowds need big anthems. Like “Sinner” – what a song – and “My Lady of Mercy” (“about going to Catholic school”). More of this please.
They end – after an unnecessary and slightly preachy political speech from Morris – with a soaring “Nothing Matters”, their first single. Mass singalong alert. I’m not sure how many times the Vale of Avalon has echoed to the words, “And I will f*** you/ Like nothing matters” before.
Here’s an interesting stat from the “Just Sayin’” drawer of the Glastonbury filing cabinet. Despite the problems with the flow of this set, a strangely large number of artists who perform on the Other Stage on a Saturday afternoon or early evening go on to headline the mighty Pyramid stage in subsequent years. The Verve in 1993, Ash in 1995, The Chemical Brothers in 1997, Travis in 1999 and Stormzy in 2017… They were all mid-table Saturday Other Stagers who went on to headline the whole thing.
Oh, there’s one more. Coldplay. They played this exact slot in 2000 – same time, same day, just after Toploader. And look what Coldplay are up to tonight. No pressure, The Last Dinner Party. But, given more time, I wouldn’t bet against it.
