The Last Dinner Party bring forks, knives to eat the Midland bones and all

Abigail Morris // Photo by Samantha Russell

The Last Dinner Party played their rollicking music to a ravenous crowd at the Midland on Wednesday, April 1. Wrapped up in their name, The Last Dinner Party presents both religious and apocalyptic imagery, twisting each to garnish their oeuvre with tart aromatics. 

Their second album From the Pyre released 2025 matures the themes of Prelude to Ecstasy. They create an illustrious stratosphere with dark academia undertones that are feminist and queer-forward.

With a highlight on “The” preceding their name, the band proclaims righteous recognition of their craft. When I first heard “Caesar on a TV Screen” from their first album on a New York City subway platform, I was floored by the lyricism. It’s like reading the opening sentence of a new-to-you-classic-writer that holds such incisive precision one cannot but throw their hands up and think, ‘who does this person think they are?’ The song encompasses gender fluidity alongside gender equality with scathing satirical commentary towards the patriarchal landscape: “I can talk all the time/‘cause my shoulders are wide.”

I stood back then on that dreary and oddly humid platform containing air soaked through with every imaginable cityscape refuse, feeling, somehow, light. Feeling seen, saturated by the visionary nature of their lyrics.

Aurora Nishevci // Photo by Samantha Russell

Emily Roberts // Photo by Samantha Russell

I stand now in front of their glory real time, dappled wet with the Kansas City April downpour set upon us by the sky in promise of May flowers.

They emerge on the opulent stage, serving silhouettes to shrill audience cheers. The stage holds free-standing arches posing ruins of a once-affluent time period. A greyhound weathervane stands on the far arch. Above, metal birds dance in a glittering mobile. As they catch and cast light, the setting is at once purgatory and womb. 

The lights come up, accentuating modern baroque outfits. Abigail Morris on vocals emerges in a laced cream gown with flowing tatters slit up to the hip; Aurora Nishevci dons an angular black pinstripe suit contrasting her red keyboards and black piano; Emily Roberts on lead guitar and mandolin and flute is in gauzy and muted flouncy dress; and Lizzie Mayland on rhythm guitar dappers with a white poet shirt and gray baggy pants so folded they’re skirt-like. Each accentuates their own personality. And as The Last Dinner Party does, they fit together to combine a larger-than-life force in the process.

Georgia Davies, who discussed with me her favorite song to write on the recent album, was not present to play the twanging baseline of “Count the Ways” for us. Max Lilley stood in for Davies, who badly hurt her back, Morris tells us, though she wishes to be there. Throughout the set, backline technician Lilley is in smiling disbelief that he’s on stage.

Lizzie Mayland and Max Lilley // Photo by Samantha Russell

Nishevci procures a beautiful song in her Albanian mother tongue with Roberts plucking mandolin, rolling into “Rifle,” a song addressing war and the place man’s behavior has in it. 

If there was ever a flat point during the show, it was when songs from the band’s first album were performed with lackluster expansiveness. Patterned instrumentation and indifferent faces trudged through the rote monotony of tracks done many times over. The Last Dinner Party came to know these songs well as they toured their only album two years ago in a global circuit encompassing not only countries but also festivals. Though energy as a whole was not lost, any stagnation was brief and barely perceptible, only noted when compared to more illuminating performances of songs they put forward with great enjoyment. Morris’ vocals kept up the energy throughout. Her performance superseded any draw towards the prosaic. 

Photo by Samantha Russell

The audience brought sharp incisors to snap up what Morris threw down. Enthusiasm was shown not just in cheers, but in the form of handmade signs. On behalf of the band, Morris accepted signage reading “Kansas City loves Portrait of a Dead Girl” on a brown paper scroll and a painted occult lamb. She pauses to sign a foot cast of a dancer with gushing empathy for the injury and thanks the opening act, Florence Road, heartily.    

Light illuminated the band anew as their energy flourished with songs from the recently released From the Pyre. They mix a wide range of shared vocal talent performing songs from this album. On “Woman is a Tree” the four of them circle around a microphone to unleash different layers of stunning hair-raising and haunting vocals. 

Stage lights glow at times like fire, illuminating the flowing backdrop and staged landscape like a beautiful wasteland utopia. The Last Dinner Party embodies with full ecstasy of being. 

With a well-done performance, we’ll linger in the sweet aftertaste until the next album. 

Photo by Samantha Russell

Photo Gallery by Eli Ralls

The Last Dinner Party

Florence Road