The Last Dinner Party – Nothing Matters (Live From Gretchen, Berlin) Review

There is no greater or grimmer satisfaction in life than a deep clean of your flat. Remove those empty jars of pesto and bid farewell to the accumulated pile of dusty records which should have been hurled into a bag and dragged to the nearest record store. Who wants a Songs of Leonard Cohen which smells so strongly of smoke that the back sleeve is peeling. The joys of desperation and the search for good music. Into the playlist everything goes, as does this, Nothing Matters. The Last Dinner Party has not so much lit a fire so much as they have created a dangerously large bonfire, piling on track after track. They have sussed out how to survive when streaming services pay a pittance. More, more, more. Live versions are often a treat (the best have them locked in) and the neatness of Nothing Matters (Live from Gretchen, Berlin) is no deviation from this rule of quality.  

It certainly sounds better from the stage of Gretchen than it did at the back of The Welly. Work fatigue and tinnitus are a beautiful combination for any gig. Still, it lingers. Proposing thoughts on songs you cannot hear is a novel concept but in those brief moments of peace, the clarity pours through and something like this, a shot of real quality, filters through. What a treat Nothing Matters is and the consistencies of The Last Dinner Party as instrumentalists and artists connected with their audience can be heard. Those little boosts of audience involvement sound wonderful, and the backing vocals from the rest of the band are given a little bit of extra prominence. Rightly so. The Last Dinner Party’s best moments come through when the band members match pace with one another – and this Live from Gretchen piece displays this best of all.  

Abigail Morris works wonders once more with a track which has captured a year of our attention. It is nigh impossible to avoid the broad strokes of quality which now engulf the stage, from some swift and well-placed percussion to a slick guitar solo from Emily Roberts which acts as a neat and uniform bridge into the crashing, repetitive highs. It captures the independence needed for the real world and the defiance in stride with those experiences of careless wonders and faith in the wrong place. Nothing Matters remains a vital and relatable piece of work which, with this live version, continues to capture the glam rock momentum which was not just heard but truly felt on their debut record. 

Unnecessarily fantastic work once more from a band whose gift for sound is as impressive as the tonal shifts they are marking with it. Nothing Matters will no doubt serve as a summer anthem and whether we get to August without wanting to take a drill to our swollen ear canals by that point is the price we pay to test the best of them. Franz Ferdinand still gets a play now and then, why not this piece? It certainly serves as a different version of the same modern classic – a chance to breathe and endure the live presence The Last Dinner Party has so tremendously nailed. More to come with the release of Sinner as a live single too. A keen and consistent stream of quality comes to fans of the band, and it keeps those with a fear of missing out in the loop.