On 16 October, Queen legend Brian May proclaimed The Last Dinner Party as “the new British Rock Royalty” after seeing the band’s show in London and posing for a photo with them backstage, which he shared on Instagram.
Brian thanked the band’s lead guitarist Emily Roberts when he stated: “They completely smashed it tonight at the Eventim Apollo. What a great show! What a joy!!! Thanks Emily for inviting me. That was just what I needed – a good ol’ dose of Rock Tonic. Folks, you have to see these guys!”
Brian also shared footage from the concert as The Last Dinner Party performed their hit song Nothing Matters.
And if Brian enjoyed himself that night, so did Emily as she got to meet the man she described as a hero in a recent interview with Total Guitar.
As she said of her early days learning to play guitar: “The first few songs I learned were Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton and loads of Led Zeppelin stuff... all the classics!
“And my original guitar hero has always been Brian May, because I love being able to sing along to the solos. I didn’t even learn them at that point, I was just listening and appreciating because Queen were one of my first musical loves.”
Emily also revealed how she played the role of Brian May in an all-female Queen tribute band in the days before The Last Dinner Party. She performed just one time with this tribute act before the pandemic put an end to their plans, but it was an experience that she learned from greatly.
“I loved Queen and knew it would be fun to learn all the solos and parts,” she said. “We only did one gig in the end, at a Queen convention near Hull. It went great. That probably ended up influencing my rock playing more than anything else, because I spent an entire summer solidly trying to get inside Brian’s playing, hearing all the little details.
“My favourite song to play was Hammer To Fall. That was always fun! Don’t Stop Me Now has a really great solo. Then there’s We Will Rock You, The Show Must Go On, there are so many. A Kind Of Magic was great, especially for those fast staccato licks. I loved it all, to be honest.”
She also cited Brian’s influence on The Last Dinner Party’s album Prelude To Ecstasy, from the soaring modal leads on tracks like Nothing Matters to a lot of the single-note riff ideas in place of the usual chordal approach favoured by many a rock band.
“The single note thing has massively influenced the way I write parts in The Last Dinner Party,” she said. “Listen to what I play on Portrait Of A Dead Girl or Sinner... it’s all single note ideas, which comes from Brian.”
