Concerts Reviews
LIVE REVIEW: The Last Dinner Party Turned Vancouver’s Orpheum Into Their Own Gothic Playground
There’s a thin line between theatrical and try-hard. The Last Dinner Party spend most of their live show sprinting directly at that line, then somehow vaulting over it without falling flat on their face. At the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver on May 19, the band’s From The Pyre Tour felt huge, dramatic, occasionally ridiculous, and fully convincing anyway.
That’s harder to pull off than people give them credit for. A lot of bands borrow aesthetics: velvet curtains, religious imagery, corsets, vintage silhouettes, tragic womanhood as performance art. The Last Dinner Party actually build a world around those ideas and commit to it so fully that the audience starts behaving like they’ve entered the same universe. Walking into the Orpheum before the show felt like arriving late to an elaborate costume party where everyone had been assigned a literary archetype ahead of time with lace gloves, ribboned dresses, heavy boots, and tiny opera binoculars. One woman looked like she’d escaped from a haunted manor in 1872 ; another looked ready to front an early-2000s emo band. Somehow both made sense.
The Last Dinner Party opened with “Agnus Dei,” and immediately the whole production snapped into focus. The towering drapery, faux-stone staging, dim cathedral lighting, and the band’s carefully styled costumes could have overwhelmed the actual music in weaker hands. Instead, it sharpened it. The set design wasn’t decoration, it functioned like an extension of the songs themselves.
Frontwoman Abigail Morris remains one of the most magnetic performers working right now partly because she never performs like she’s above any of this. Plenty of singers can command a room. Morris pulls people into one. She spent nearly two hours stalking across the stage, throwing herself into songs with total conviction, then suddenly grinning between tracks like she still can’t believe the band got this big this fast. That balance matters as without it, the band’s maximalism could easily turn self-serious. Instead, the show constantly breathed.
The run of “Count the Ways,” “The Feminine Urge,” and “Caesar on a TV Screen” early in the set was absurdly strong. Guitarist Emily Roberts shredded through riffs with a refreshingly unpolished swagger compared to a lot of modern indie rock’s obsession with restraint. There were moments during “Caesar on a TV Screen” where the entire show tipped into full glam-rock spectacle. Big gestures, big harmonies, big emotions, and no apology for any of it.
Midway through the set, things got darker and more interesting. Songs from From The Pyre carried far more weight live than they do on record, especially “Woman Is a Tree” and “Rifle.” The quieter moments felt genuinely tense inside the Orpheum. You could hear the room lock in. During the eerie vocal opening of “Woman Is a Tree,” the band gathered close together beneath dim lighting while shadowy bird imagery hovered overhead. It was one of the night’s best moments.
The absence of bassist Georgia Davies, who remains off tour recovering from injury, was acknowledged warmly. Touring bassist Max Lilley handled the material well, though Davies’ absence still felt noticeable in a band this chemistry-driven. The Last Dinner Party work best when they feel like five personalities colliding together at once.
Keyboardist Aurora Nishevci quietly stole several moments throughout the night, especially during “I Hold Your Anger,” which landed with force live. The band’s harmonies remain their secret weapon. Beneath all the theatricality and visual ambition, they’re still an exceptionally tight musicianship-first band.
Before launching into “Nothing Matters,” Morris asked the crowd to put their phones away for one song. The people listened and suddenly the room felt freer and less self-conscious. The balcony shook during the chorus as people screamed every word back at the stage.
The encore leaned fully into chaos. “This Is the Killer Speaking” arrived with dance instructions and country-western absurdity. By the time the band closed with an “Agnus Dei” reprise, the crowd looked exhausted and completely won over.
The Last Dinner Party are already very good. What makes this tour exciting is that they still feel slightly dangerous around the edges. There are moments where the ambition threatens to spill over, moments where things nearly become too theatrical or too sentimental. But they should protect that feeling at all costs.
Check out our favourite photos of the night below or head to our Facebook page for the full gallery!
Upcoming From The Pyre Tour Dates:
05/20 Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall %
05/22 Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo %
05/26 Sacramento, CA – Channel 24 %
05/27 Oakland, CA – Fox Theater %
05/29 Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre %
05/31 Del Mar, CA – The Sound %
06/02 Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom %
06/04 Des Moines, IA – Val Air Ballroom %
06/05 Saint Paul, MN – Palace Theatre %
06/07 Detroit, MI – Masonic Jack White Theatre %
06/09 Columbus, OH – KEMBA Live! %
06/10 Nashville, TN – The Pinnacle %
06/12 Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore Charlotte %
06/13 Atlanta, GA – The Eastern %
% with Automatic
More information here.
THE LAST DINNER PARTY
AUTOMATIC
All Photo Credit: Caroline Charruyer
Concerts Reviews
LIVE REVIEW: AC/DC – Hell’s Still Bellin’
AC/DC. Christ. What’s left to say? Everything’s been said, screamed, tattooed on someone’s bicep already. Doesn’t matter. That’s the whole racket, they never changed, never blinked, and more than fifty years later they’re still the loudest gang in the room.
Growing up, they felt ancient already. I am a 2001 kid. Turns out the joke’s on me: they’re still out there, riffing like it’s ’79, refusing to retire into legend status.
Princess Auto Stadium was packed with about 35000 attendees. Everyone was wearing red twinkling devil’s horns. To warm up the night, The Pretty Reckless started with one of the hits “Death by Rock and Roll.” Some support acts play like they’re grateful for the slot. Taylor Momsen played like she owns the stadium. The hair falling forward, somehow the less you can see of her face the more magnetic she gets. Stage presence isn’t something you learn. She’s just got it.
The band didn’t sound like an opener. Every riff landed with the swagger “Going To Hell” and “Since You’re Gone” kept it burning, and “About You” brought it down to something rawer before the lights cut. By the time The Pretty Reckless walked off, the audience were already screaming AC/DC! AC/DC!
Winnipeggers stood stunned through AC/DC‘s whole set. Angus Young, 71 years old still in that signature blue schoolboy uniform and yellow-and-blue cap, ran wild across the stage, duck-walking like no time had passed at all, genuinely, a dream come true to watch in person.
Meanwhile, the rest of the band, rhythm guitarist Stevie Young, bassist Chris Chaney and drummer Matt Laug stayed largely in the background, keeping the engine running for Angus and Johnson to tear apart.
The production matched the legend, “Hells Bells” arrived with an actual giant bell hanging over the stage. The setlist ran deep: “Thunderstruck,” “Have a Drink on Me,” “Shot in the Dark,” “Stiff Upper Lip,” “Highway to Hell,” “Jailbreak,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” Almost every song sounded just as good as the album version. The crowd tore their vocal cords apart singing along to “You Shook Me All Night Long” and “TNT.” “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” closed things out with cannons blasting into the night sky.
The house lights came up and nobody moved right away. Smoke still hanging over the stage, ears ringing, horns still lit up red across the stands. Bands this old aren’t supposed to sound this dangerous. They aren’t supposed to still mean it. But AC/DC never got the memo about slowing down, and honestly, thank God for that. I walked out hoarse, deaf, and completely satisfied.
Check out our favourite photos of the night below or head to our Facebook page for the full gallery!
AC/DC
THE PRETTY RECKLESS
All Photo Credit: Nischal Karki
Concerts Reviews
LIVE REVIEW: Party On, Vancouver: Dogstar Sells Out the Vogue Theatre
The Vogue Theatre was packed wall to wall on September 16 as Dogstar rolled into Vancouver, and the excitement was impossible to miss. New York rock band The Backfires kicked things off with a lively opening set, warming up the room before Bret Domrose, Robert Mailhouse and Keanu Reeves stepped onto the stage. Naturally, hundreds of phones immediately went up when Reeves appeared, because Vancouver was not about to let this extremely Keanu moment go undocumented.
Reeves held down the bass, Domrose took on guitar and vocals, and Mailhouse powered the night from behind the drums. While one member may come with a little more star power, Dogstar quickly felt like a proper three-piece instead of a celebrity side project. The chemistry between them was relaxed and natural, with plenty of smiles, glances and little interactions that made it clear they were genuinely happy to be playing together. Reeves frequently wandered across the stage to jam alongside his bandmates, occasionally making his way toward the front and sending another wave of phones into the air.
Dogstar’s story stretches back to Los Angeles in 1991, when Reeves and Mailhouse first started making music together. Domrose later joined the band, and the trio released two albums before going their separate ways in 2002. More than two decades later, they reunited, returned to the stage and released Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees in 2023. Now, with their latest album All In Now and another tour underway, Dogstar are giving this chapter of the band far more than a quick nostalgia lap.
The set began with “Siren,” immediately setting an easygoing alt-rock tone for the night. Their cover of The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” brought an extra burst of familiarity, while “Punch the Sky” landed with the kind of energy made for a full theatre. Rather than pausing for long speeches, the band kept things moving, letting the music and their chemistry do most of the talking. Domrose’s vocals stayed at the centre of the songs, Mailhouse gave them plenty of drive, and Reeves appeared completely locked into the groove on bass.
Yes, people cheered whenever Reeves moved closer to the edge of the stage. Yes, there was an undeniable thrill in seeing the internet’s favourite human casually rocking out a few feet away. But the attention did not stay on him alone. Domrose and Mailhouse were just as essential to the show, and together the trio delivered a performance that felt tight without becoming overly polished. There was still room for the songs to breathe, for the band to play off one another and for the night to feel a little spontaneous.
A fun surprise arrived during the encore with a roaring cover of The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” The band shared that they had only performed it live once before, making it a particularly unexpected way to close the night. The Vogue responded accordingly, singing, cheering and soaking up every last second before the trio left the stage.
More than 30 years after forming, and over two decades after calling it quits, Dogstar are back on the road and clearly having a great time together. That sense of fun was infectious, turning the sold-out show into something warmer and more memorable than a simple celebrity sighting. Vancouver may have arrived ready to see Keanu Reeves play bass, but by the end of the night, Dogstar had given the crowd plenty of reasons to stay invested in the whole band.
Check out our favourite photos of the night below or head to our Facebook page for the full gallery!
DOGSTAR
THE BACKFIRES
All Photo Credit: Heather Horncastle