Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland‘s guide to help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.
Music: The Last Dinner Party at Royale
It was nearly a year ago The Last Dinner Party first cast a spell upon us, captivating with the instantly-iconic debut single “Nothing Matters.” Since then, the fame we predicted for the cinematic English glam band has come fast and furious, delivering on the promise of their 2023 SOTY with this year’s likely AOTY in Prelude to Ecstasy. This weekend, the most exciting new band in ages finally arrives in Boston, serving up their decadent elegance and holding court at a sold-out Royale in the Theatre District on Sunday (March 24). Music has been lacking a grand spectacle for quite some time, but The Last Dinner Party’s magnetic appeal has seemingly ushered in a new era of escapist enchantment. Revisit our extensive coverage on this remarkable band from last spring to now, and wear your finest in welcoming this creative force to town for the first time.
THE LAST DINNER PARTY + MISS GRIT :: Sunday, March 24 at Royale, 279 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, sold out :: Event info
Comedy: Nate Bargatze at TD Garden
Playing TD Garden as a stand-up comic is most certainly notable. But stacking two shows in one day at the big ol’ barn is just next-level impressive. Nate Bargatze brings his Be Funny Tour to Boston this Sunday (March 24) for a pair of shows, marking a cool Boston milestone for the Nashville native that began nearly 15 years ago. Here’s Mic’d Up with the word: “With a long line of history tracing all the way back to the stand-up contest at the 2010 Boston Comedy Festival, ‘The Tennessee Kid’ brings his biggest tour yet to the city for another etching in the Boston comedy history books, while continuing his low-key reign as one of the most likable and creatively potent comedians in the game today.”
NATE BARGATZE :: Sunday, March 24 at TD Garden, 100 Legends Way in Boston, MA, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., Tickets starting at $46.25 :: Advance tickets
Film/TV: Boston Underground Film Festival at The Brattle
We love a good indie film fest, and few deliver quite like BUFF. The Boston Underground Film Festival — annually “highlighting the strange, the unusual, and the overlooked” — kicked off earlier this week with a full slate of programming at The Brattle in Cambridge, and film editor Nick Johnston previewed it with five films not to be missed. And fear not: Three of those films, Sleep, In a Violent Nature, and Boy Kills World, are playing this weekend. Here’s word on In a Violent Nature, showing Saturday (March 23), from our preview:
“We absolutely loved this avant-garde slasher when we saw it at Sundance a few months back, but we’d like to just go ahead and tell you that there’s about a 50-50 chance you’ll fucking hate this movie. A slow deconstruction of your average Friday the 13th, In a Violent Nature follows, quite literally, a supernatural killer as he makes his way through the forests surrounding a campsite. Director Chris Nash wisely toes the line between full avant-garde indulgence and giving the people what they want – gorehounds, take note, because there’s some gnarly shit on display here – and winds up with a meditative exploration of a genre’s rhythms and motions.”
BOSTON UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL :: Now to Sunday, March 24 at The Brattle, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Showtimes vary, check listings :: Event info