Abba

The glorious silliness of tribute band names

Seeing a tribute band can be a strange experience. There are your heroes on stage once more, magically rejuvenated and playing the music of your youth. You too feel briefly young again – until you notice everyone else at the gig is also at least 57. But as often as not the band is brilliant. They have lovingly tracked down the right guitars, effect pedals and amp settings in search of the perfect sound. They have styled their hair just so, applied the requisite tattoos and, at some obvious expense, commissioned perfect replicas of signature stage outfits. See Björn Again and the girls might come complete with the purple capes worn for ABBA’s 1980 world tour before changing into the white-booted “SOS” look.

tribute

The Last Dinner Party’s Prelude to Ecstasy fizzes with wit and invention

I have lost hope in contemporary pop music. As someone who used to keep his finger on the pulse of new releases, and who went to gigs as often as I could, the absence of innovation has been one of the great disappointments of the past couple of decades. There really isn’t anything much out there, bar, of course, the sainted Taylor Swift. But ever since David Bowie’s death eight years ago (eight years...), the music industry seems to have been in a desperate downward spiral, where flair, originality and chutzpah are sorely missed. Surely it’s time that a new act could supply such things, complete with flute solos, songs sung in Albanian and an orchestral overture? No, I am not making it up.

last dinner party