This can be a pivotal set for The Final Dinner Occasion, on the Different Stage on Saturday afternoon at Glastonbury below a blazing solar. The London-based feminine five-piece’s rise has been meteoric – 15 months in the past I noticed them play in a windowless room above a pub in Camden, whereas final summer time they carried out in a far-flung tent at breakfast time on the Sunday. And right here they’re as we speak, enjoying to a crowd of tens of hundreds, with a No 1 album and a Brit Award below their collective belts.
I’d barely anticipated their set to be this 12 months’s Fred Once more.. second: a confluence of massive crowd power and delightful climate throughout the DJ’s set on the identical stage final 12 months made it a fabled “Glastonbury second” – a bizarre little bit of Somerset alchemy that renders a efficiency greater than the sum of its elements. Do The Final Dinner Occasion obtain this? No. It’s shut at instances they usually brim with confidence. However too usually, their set hovers the place it might soar.
Maybe my expectations are only a notch too excessive (an issue about which this much-hyped band are effectively conscious). However the situation at this present – on certainly their most high-profile stage to this point – is the “bangers to ballads” ratio. There are too most of the latter, which causes issues to lull among the many pageant crowd. In one other album’s time, with extra songs to select from, they’d certainly personal this slot and greater ones as well. Certainly, there’s an simple sense that massive issues could be on the horizon sooner or later.
The Final Dinner Occasion are a unbelievable band: thrilling, formidable and gifted. They play theatrical, post-punk baroque pop. Think about a splash of Kate Bush with a dollop of Sparks and a sprinkle of Abba glam with a aspect order of Roxy Music, all certain collectively by the appreciable prowess, poise and star wattage of frontwoman Abigail Morris. Relentless touring has honed them right into a advantageous dwell act.
They take to the stage of their traditional array of baroque clothes: flowing clothes with puffy sleeves, stack-heeled boots and bodices. “Caesar on a TV Display screen” is all brooding theatricality as Morris twirls across the stage and guitarist Emily Roberts performs memorable guitar motifs. Beware timid-looking band members. Boy, does she shred. The ballads are undeniably beautiful (Morris tells us to get our “crying out of the best way” earlier than we “get on to the dancing and the intercourse”), however massive crowds want massive anthems. Like “Sinner” – what a music – and “My Woman of Mercy” (“about going to Catholic faculty”). Extra of this please.
They finish – after an pointless and barely preachy political speech from Morris – with a hovering “Nothing Issues”, their first single. Mass singalong alert. I’m unsure what number of instances the Vale of Avalon has echoed to the phrases, “And I’ll f*** you/ Like nothing issues” earlier than.
Right here’s an fascinating stat from the “Simply Sayin’” drawer of the Glastonbury submitting cupboard. Regardless of the issues with the movement of this set, a surprisingly giant variety of artists who carry out on the Different Stage on a Saturday afternoon or early night 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 had been all mid-table Saturday Different Stagers who went on to headline the entire thing.
Oh, there’s yet one more. Coldplay. They performed this actual slot in 2000 – identical time, identical day, simply after Toploader. And look what Coldplay are as much as tonight. No strain, The Final Dinner Occasion. However, given extra time, I wouldn’t guess towards it.
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