Performance Review: Last Dinosaurs at the Starlite Room

Brisbane, Australia-based indie band, Last Dinosaurs, went wild at the Starlite Room on February 15. They played some great songs from their newest release, had some crowd pleasing covers, and overall had a great stay in Edmonton. 

The band is currently touring their new re-recorded and re-released 10 year anniversary record, Wellnxss. After their cyberpunk inspired 2024 release, Kyoryu, the band looked to re-imagine their 2015 record, Wellness. But, their previous label wasn’t interested. So under Nettwerk, the band got to re-record it. Now, the band is on the road playing fan favourites. 

At their Edmonton show, aside from their encore, the setlist stuck to songs off the recent re-release. And hearing these songs live in a different tone, and stripped down with a bit of clarity was insanely good. 

A big standout for me was “Wxrl.” The record has a bit of drive on the voice, and while the band’s lead singer, Sean Caskey’s voice is great on the record, it absolutely shines in person. And along with him was the rest of the band, adding some standout backing vocals. All this with the very catchy guitar made this song one that stuck with me. 

On “Wellxness,” the band slowed things down. Caskey had some notably interesting talk-box sounding vocals and after setting the tone, the band smoothly transitioned into “Dive.” Despite picking up the vibe a bit, the set tone had the crowd swaying and with the band’s really great energy, it was kept up. All this set up “Dive” to be another big stand out. The Caskey brothers have some amazing guitar parts in their songs and this one is a great example of it. And with the setlist having this song arranged between “Wellxness” and “Alwxys,” it felt curated to be a notable moment. 

And that’s not to say the show wasn’t full of moments like that. The following song, “Alwxys,” picked things back up again to make the song feel emphasized. “Alwxys” has insanely strong instrumentals and a wildly catchy chorus that made hearing it live a great time. 

“Pxrist” and “Dead Or Alive” followed, getting the crowd dancing. And not only did the crowd have a great time, the band looked like they were too. They had great energy and just looked like they were enjoying themselves which is genuinely one of the best things to see at a show. The songs are great, but the energy and live experience they created made them even better. 

After such a strong main set, they finished it off with an encore of some very welcomed, but unexpected covers. For their encore, they came out and played crowd pleasers like Modjo’s “Lady — Hear Me Tonight” and Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better With You,” which are both songs I didn’t know could be such good covers. It’s not often a band comes back out to just have a good time and make their mark on some well known songs, but they did. I genuinely don’t think I’ll hear those songs again without thinking of Last Dinosaurs. It was a perfect ending to an amazing set.