The Last Dinner Party – Big Dog (On The Road)
The Last Dinner Party have been playing “Big Dog” live since before their debut album Prelude to Ecstasy, and fans have been asking for a studio version for just as long. It’s finally here, co-produced by the band alongside Animesh Raval, marking their first production credit. It arrives alongside “Come All You Beasts”, a spoken word piece they regularly recite before performing the song live.
Three minutes of dark, forceful art-pop: big guitars, Abigail Morris’s vocals pushing hard throughout, the kind of track that makes clear why it’s been a set highlight for years. Bassist Georgia Davies explains the companion piece: “’Come All You Beasts’ was written as a way to introduce the folkloric and storytelling elements of ‘From the Pyre’ to ‘Big Dog’. The themes of the song were interpolated with Bible verses, subverting prescriptive messages about women’s safety. We have always been inspired by poetry and performance in all forms, so spoken word with improvisational accompaniment felt like a natural extension of our art.” The PJ Harvey comparison that keeps appearing in the coverage is fair: there’s the same quality of controlled aggression, the sense of a lyric doing precise work beneath a sound that’s deliberately rough.
The song’s central image, the big dog as a shifting allegory for power and who holds it, runs through the whole track without resolving neatly, which is what keeps it interesting past the initial impact. The bridge lands hard: “Don’t take your clothes off when you’re famous / What kind of thing is that to say to a child?” sits in the middle of the song without comment, which gives it more weight than any amount of elaboration would. I find that kind of restraint harder to pull off than it looks, especially in a track this visceral.
The band are mid-way through a US headline tour that runs to mid-June, then return to the UK for Isle of Wight Festival, TRNSMT, Latitude, a support slot for Wolf Alice at Finsbury Park, and their first festival headline at Wilderness. European summer festival dates follow, then a 14-date US support run with Sombr in October. Support dates with Olivia Rodrigo on her Unravelled Tour follow in January and February 2027 at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles and Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Tour Dates:
North America:
- May 16 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Block Party
- May 19 – Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum ^
- May 20 – Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall ^
- May 22 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo ^
- May 23 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo ^
- May 26 – Sacramento, CA @ Channel 24 ^
- May 27 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater ^
- May 29 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Orpheum ^
- May 31 – Del Mar, CA @ The Sound ^
- June 2 – Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom ^
- June 4 – Des Moines, IA @ Val Air Ballroom ^
- June 5 – Saint Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre ^
- June 7 – Detroit, MI @ Masonic Jack White Theatre ^
- June 9 – Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live! ^
- June 10 – Nashville, TN @ The Pinnacle ^
- June 12 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore Charlotte ^
- June 13 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern ^
- Oct 16 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Paycom Center *
- Oct 17 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center *
- Oct 18 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center *
- Oct 20 – Austin, TX @ Moody Center *
- Oct 22 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena *
- Oct 24 – Sunrise, FL @ Amerant Bank Arena *
- Oct 25 – Orlando, FL @ Kia Center *
- Oct 27 – Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center *
- Oct 28 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena *
- Oct 30 – St. Louis, MO @ Enterprise Center *
- Oct 31 – Kansas City, MO @ T-Mobile Center *
- Nov 1 – Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center *
- Nov 3 – Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum *
- Nov 4 – Chicago, IL @ United Center *
- Jan 12–29, 2027 – Los Angeles, CA @ Intuit Dome &
- Feb 11–28, 2027 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center &
Europe:
- Isle of Wight Festival
- TRNSMT
- Latitude
- Finsbury Park, London (supporting Wolf Alice)
- Wilderness Festival (headline)
- Various European summer festival dates
^ w/ Automatic
- Supporting Sombr & Supporting Olivia Rodrigo
