Lana del Rey is our First Lady

​​As I made my way along the concourse to Wembley Stadium on Friday night, surrounded by a crowd of thousands, I had the thought, “wow…. I can’t believe this many people like my favourite niche indie artist, Lana del Rey.”

This is ridiculous, obviously: she’s Lana del fucking Rey! Her streaming figures are enormous; her music is inescapable on social media; she’s headlined large festivals all over the world, and her status as a generational great is by this point largely undisputed. But still, there’s something about her that makes her an unlikely stadium act, some quality that makes her seem like a cult figure no matter how big she gets. I think this is partly because her music is so intimate that her audience has an intensely personal relationship to it. And while it doesn’t mean much in the age of streaming, she hasn’t had very many commercial hits – her biggest UK single was a remix of “Summertime Sadness” and she hasn’t cracked the top 40 in years (that “Venice Bitch” didn’t spend 12 weeks at the top of the charts is more evidence for the appalling philistinism of the general public.) Above all, Lana just doesn’t seem like she wants to be a stadium-level act – she seems instead like someone who is driven by her own creative instincts, wherever they lead her.

Initially, I wasn’t quite sure how her music would translate to a stadium context, and I had some misgivings about the set list, after seeing what she’d performed during the tour’s previous dates in Cardiff, Dublin and Glasgow. I had also heard that attendees had been divided over the show’s 90-minute length and Lana’s habitual lateness. However, I ended up being so blown away that I felt a “Beatlemania” level of teenage hysteria every time her face appeared on the big screen. Her vocals sounded incredible; the crumbling southern gothic manor set design looked great; her performance was captivating (she has such an expressive face and conveyed a vulnerability which was even more powerful set against the vastness of the venue), and she looked absolutely radiant. Mamma mia… I’m a gay guy – if that wasn’t already clear – but at one point I literally turned into a cartoon wolf and began whistling at the stage as a giant red heart beat out of my chest. 

This was a stadium tour for an album which hasn’t been released yet, tentatively titled The Right Person Will Stay. The new songs she played, including lead single “Henry, Come On” and three which still aren’t available, ended up being some of the highlights. The opener, a swooning, steel guitar country ballad called “Stars Fell on Alabama”, sounded like an instant career highlight. The second, “Quiet in the South”, was a little less immediate, but I could tell I’m going to love it when I get to listen to it properly. The third, “57.5”, which she performed with supporting Addison Rae, combined a gleefully ridiculous chorus (“I ain’t got a man but maybe one of them’s a fan of mine, on those 57.5 million listeners of Spotify”) with an almost disproportionately beautiful melody. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the support act, Addison Rae. She is such an endearing onstage presence: warm, giggly and seemingly thrilled to be there, with a southern charm that recalls a young Britney. She’s a great dancer (a particular highlight being when she put on a donk at the end of “Fame is a Gun”) and her debut album is so solid that everyone song she played went off – not many support acts will have thousands of people signing along to every word of their album tracks, never mind the singles. (You heard it here first, folks: this “Addison Rae” is going to be big!)

In conclusion, Lana del Rey is a beautiful, classy lady; a captivating performer and the greatest songwriter of her generation. Make some mild criticisms of her stadium tour, if you really must, but keep those facts in mind and have a bit of respect.