★★★☆☆
Cooling down from the acts of the day, all the Lana stans in their coquette core and obligatory flower crowns waded their way through the grass and mud to see their queen in the flesh.
As time ticked by, with her 30-minute late entrance, the impatient crowd kept the energy up, heckling a football chant of “Ohh Lana Del Reyyyyy”. Finally, the lights dimmed and it was go time.
Lana strutted on to the festival’s Other Stage, lit up by a sign backdrop spelling out “God Bless You Glastonbury”. The set kicked off with ‘Peppers’, from her latest album, before launching into the legendary ‘Young and Beautiful’, with her dress train glamorously fluttering behind her.
Photo: Rich Fury.
Without a doubt, the set was bizarre. The singer sauntered over to a dressing table, excusing her lateness for her hair not being done as an unnecessary faux excuse, whilst having her backup dancers make the finishing touches. The dressing table sat amongst the over-excessive amount of props with swings and mirrors, with the overly saturated stage design distracting from Lana’s immense talent.
Vape-in-hand, Lana flitted through her discography, bringing the crowd to tears on anthems like ‘Bartender’ and ‘Normal Rockwell’. A true highlight came with the leg of ‘Ride’ and ‘Born to Die’ straight into ‘Blue Jeans’, giving the audience a chance to relive their collective 2012 Tumblr eras. On ‘Ultraviolence’ and ‘White Mustang’, meanwhile, Lana delivered thrashing choruses, backlit by videos of the singer’s previous eras.
After this, the proceedings were abruptly brought to an end, with her mic cut-off by the Glastonbury crew, adding fuel to the fire of her already seeming beef with the festival. Lana had previously addressed the festival’s lineup announcement on Twitter with a sarcastic “Well, I’m actually headlining the 2nd stage. But since there was no consideration for announcing that. We’ll see.”
Compensating for her lack of mic power, the singer mouthed the first line of ‘Video Games’, with the audience belting back a full rendition of the downtempo pop ballad. She then walked down to the crowd, holding the hands of all her devoted fans in the front row before being ushered off by security.
Lana Del Rey sings Video Games even when her mic cut off ❤️https://t.co/UL8l0bxXKV
— lana del rey hq (@LDRHQ) June 24, 2023
The theatrics of it all, paired with this not being the first time Lana’s been cut off, makes me sceptical to the authenticity of the drama. After all, the victimisation does feed into her quintessential fantasy image of being a tragic, romantic icon. However, the lack of bangers like ‘West Coast’ and ‘Summertime Sadness’ was definitely felt by all, as the confused audience fled the stage to carry on their night, refusing to leave it on a low.
It goes without saying, Lana Del Rey is an exceptional singer and performer, but a terrible timekeeper.
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