If there’s one thing 2024 has taught us so far, it’s that celebrities don’t forget a slight (*cough cough* Beyoncé making Cowboy Carter in response to the 2016 CMAs). For Lana Del Rey, that slight arrived at the very beginning of her career. Or, as she was specific in calling out: January 14, 2012. The night of her forever notorious Saturday Night Live performance. To prepare Coachella audiences for the idea that this is where her mind is still at, she put up a billboard (which is becoming something of an LDR signature) that parodied those Christian ones you usually see on the side of the highway. Except this one said, “Has anyone else died for you? Lana Del Rey SNL Jan 14 2012.”
Del Rey, well-aware by now that she is indeed a Christ-like figure to her fans, is having fun with this kind of power (not just the power to buy billboards wherever she wants—something Angelyne knows all about—but the power to compare herself, The Beatles-style, to Jesus). While some might have thought it was a non sequitur meant to show that even someone as iconic as Del Rey could still poke fun at her past faux pas (and it was a faux pas, not a totally out-of-left-field lynching from the critics), it was instead a harbinger of her performance to come.
Never one to imbue too much fanfare into her generally simple live shows, Del Rey decided to put a bit more effort into the occasion. Certainly far more than she did the first time she performed at Coachella in 2014. And, as she points out briefly between “Born to Die” and “Bartender,” “We were here exactly ten years ago to the day. We’re still doin’ it.” That’s right, April 13th was a Sunday in 2014, and Arcade Fire was headlining that night instead (long before the Win Butler allegations surfaced). At that time, Del Rey’s “costume” choice was a tropical-inspired, vibrantly-colored floral dress. Much more no-frills than what she donned for her headlining debut: a sparkling baby blue number with a peekaboo cutout just above the stomach paired with knee-high glittering rhinestone boots (not unlike the ones she wore for a performance in Antwerp during the LA to the Moon Tour). It was also apparent that Del Rey had put in work to slim down before the show (perhaps incorporating the added benefit of her lifetime supply of Skims after becoming Kim’s shill). Proving her commitment to restoring herself as fully as possible to her 2012 aesthetic/glory.
In fact, when Del Rey posted an image of herself with longer, honeysuckle blonde hair two weeks before the festival, the automatic thought was, “Oh, 2012 Lana is reemerging.” Her desire to return to that moment in time is likely because she’s still grappling with the reaction she received when she achieved mainstream success with “Video Games.” As any psychologically attuned person knows, it can take years to fully process a trauma. And it seemed that Del Rey was very ready to process hers and release it for Weekend 1 of Coachella. Starting with the strategicness of that “Christ billboard.” Because if the critics were going to crucify her, Del Rey could at least take comfort in the fact that her fans worshiped (and worship) her with the same fervor as Jesus fanatics (or Tulsa Jesus freaks, to make an LDR song reference). Is it hyperbolic that so many celebrities compare themselves to Jesus (see also: Madonna and Ye)? Of course. But it isn’t an inaccurate comparison in a time when celebrities have become the new deities. And just like gods, people enjoy knocking them off their pedestal time and time again.
But Del Rey was determined to be seen as a god (not a monster) on her big night. Thus, she rode “into town” on the back of a Daddy type’s motorcycle, leading in an entire procession of motorcycles that included her go-to backup dancers/singers, Ashley Rodriguez and Alexandria Kaye. It was the pinnacle of her “Ride” vibe from, what else, 2012. And, not so coincidentally, “Jealous Girl,” an unreleased track that went viral on TikTok in ‘21, soundtracks the entrance. Though recorded in 2010, it was leaked online in November of ‘12. Her inclusion of this track as an intro seemed to make an instant comment on her toxic relationship with critics, with Del Rey’s lyrics to “Jealous Girl” touting, “Baby, I’m a gangster, too, and it takes two to tango/You don’t wanna dance with me, dance with me/Honey, I’m in love with you, if you don’t feel the same, boy/You don’t wanna mess with me, mess with me.” Almost like a warning to critics to stop “playing” her, Del Rey has long been known for positioning herself as a “gangster,” even publicly baiting Azealia Banks with comments like, “u know the addy. Pull up anytime. Say it to my face. But if I were you—I wouldn’t.” This, alas, is arguably her least believable persona—the one that insists it can “cut a bitch” if necessary. Because in a physical fight between Banks and Del Rey, there’s no question Banks would win.
Barring the fact that the word “gangster” is somewhat problematic when describing a white girl or coming from her own mouth, Del Rey was known for using it to brand herself as a “gangster Nancy Sinatra” at the beginning of her career. And so she mashed up “Jealous Girl” with Kehlani’s “Gangsta” from the Suicide Squad Soundtrack—an interesting choice considering Kehlani publicly condemned her on Twitter in 2020 for not blurring out the faces of Black and Brown protesters and looters in a video she posted on Instagram. Perhaps she’s talked it out with Kehlani since, or maybe it’s a belated peace offering/mea culpa. Whatever the case, Del Rey wanted to remind the audience that she’s still the same “gangster bitch” they first came to love at the beginning of 2012—botched SNL performance or not.
Unfortunately, as one review from The Guardian pointed out, if this was Del Rey’s attempt to prove she had come a long way from that performance vocally, this wasn’t the finest example of a coup. Not least of which was because of the ceaseless mic and sound problems that persisted throughout the short set. A set that consisted of nineteen tracks instead of the eleven she performed in 2014. And, sadly, the setlist hasn’t evolved much since that time, with many of the exact songs showing up in ‘24, including “Born to Die,” “West Coast,” “Young and Beautiful,” “Ride,” “Summertime Sadness” and “Video Games.” All of which remain “classics” in her oeuvre, but which are becoming extremely overwrought at this juncture as she’s never removed them from her setlist. Even Madonna doesn’t play “Like A Virgin” and “Material Girl” every time she tours—in fact, that would make her sick.
The only truly unexpected addition/“shakeup” to Del Rey’s extremely tired setlist was the decision to open with “Without You,” presented as an unabashed love letter to fans in this context (“I’m nothing without you”). However, it was already during this song that her arbitrary trail-offs and failure to sing complete lyrics portended how the rest of the show would go, relying mostly on her choir-y backup singers and cameos from Jon Batiste and Billie Eilish to mitigate any shortcomings. One doesn’t bring Jack Antonoff up as a “cameo” because he just seems to be perennially there, in Lana and Taylor Swift’s orbit. As for the latter, many had speculated she would be a guest onstage, but perhaps she didn’t want to outshine LDR yet again, as she did at the Grammys and during “Snow on the Beach.”
“Without You” then led into “West Coast,” during which Del Rey didn’t bother to sing the opening verse and it became more of an interlude-y type thing as she languidly danced about. To sustain her California theme/homage, she then dove into her cover of Sublime’s “Doin’ Time,” a track that she’s made all her own in the way that Whitney Houston was able to do with “I Will Always Love You.” Except, when performed live here, there were plenty of “quiet singing” and off-key moments. Which were perhaps also meant to be obfuscated by the pole dancing that went on throughout, just one of many “props” onstage, including a motorcycle (Del Rey really wants you to know she loves to ride). And it could have also been an unwitting statement on Del Rey’s part in that the women on the pole were all of color, harkening back to her addendum to the “question for the culture,” when she insisted she was unfairly victimized and persecuted by the media because “when I get on the pole, people call me a whore, but when Twigs gets on the pole, it’s art.” Firstly, Del Rey had only even been “on the pole” for a brief scene in her Tropico short film and no one called her a whore for that, and secondly, yeah, Twigs does make pole dancing into art. Del Rey just kind of flops around on it. Anyway, she seemed to be preparing the audience for when she actually would “get on” the pole (a.k.a. casually swing around it).
But before that, the audience was given a trippy, psychedelic instrumental intro to “Summertime Sadness,” just another among many moments when she trailed off on lyrics. Seeing her do this against the Miss Havisham-meets-dilapidated-Jay-Gastby-mansion backdrop, it highlighted the idea that Del Rey will be singing these same songs “till the end of time.”
This includes another post-2017 staple, “Cherry,” featuring the usual choreo. But at least Del Rey mixed up some of the lyrics by adding, “Can I get a fuckin’ hallelujah/Sippin’ on a Coca-Cola.” Maybe that addition is a substitute for the fact that she vowed to never sing the now “insensitive” “Cola” again (which was, incidentally, part of her Coachella 2014 setlist).
Another “business as usual” performance was “Pretty When I Cry,” with lots of echo piled onto her voice as she lay onstage in “orgiastic atrophy” with her backup dancers. Toward the end, she misses the mark on singing in her mic and goes slightly off-key, perhaps another nod to SNL 2012? And speaking of, she gives us another song from that year in “Ride,” prefaced by her usual voiceover, “I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer,” etc., etc. In other words, “I love Daddies.” Although Evan Peters doesn’t fit that bill, it didn’t stop him from making out quite uninhibitedly to the tune of “Born to Die.” And it was, very literally, just the tune, for that was the song that arguably had the most mic issues, allowing for large chunks of instrumentals only. “Bartender” then commenced with a super off-key verse, as though she couldn’t hear herself. “Will you turn Byron down one?” she has to ask soon after starting. Presumably Byron is one of her mics. And he was not accommodating.
After getting through that, a small “Burnt Norton” interlude precedes “Chemtrails Over the Country Club,” which relies on a “cloth dance” to distract from more vocal woes before “The Grants.” This track, too, is one of the few fresh additions to the usual setlist after Del Rey released Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. And one imagines she finds it a relief to perform, as all the vocal heavy lifting is done by her three backup singers, Pattie Howard, Melodye Perry and Shikena Jones. The eponymous single from that same album then opens with an introduction about the why of constructing a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard (mainly because it was very dangerous to cross the street, as it is among many boulevards of LA County) as an image of the sealed tunnel is projected onscreen. In this moment, Del Rey is at her most wistful and nostalgic. Indeed, the majority of her career is founded on the kind of wistfulness and nostalgia that millennials have increasingly turned to as a source of comfort.
For “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” Del Rey again lets her backup singer take the lead for the repetition of the word “blue” at the end as she just kind of stands there and makes an ethereal arm gesture. As for the inclusion of “Arcadia” (the only song from Blue Banisters to make an appearance), one can’t help but think that it also plays into her theme for the night: fuck the critics. After all, this is the song with the lyrics, “They built me up three hundred feet tall just to tear me down/So I’m leavin’ with nothing but laughter, and this town” and “I’m leavin’ them as I was, five-foot-eight Western belt, plus the hate that they gave/By the way, thanks for that, on the way, I’ll pray for ya.” The religious undercurrent there also ties into that billboard—and Del Rey’s Catholic upbringing in general. One that, like Madonna, so often finds her at war with the sacred and profane.
A prime example of that, lyric and imagery-wise, is “Candy Necklace” featuring Jon Batiste on piano. His appearance onstage brightens Del Rey’s spirit before she biffs the vocals on that, too, often sounding like a dying animal and frequently forgetting to hold the mic up to her mouth (one would suggest she might try wearing a headset, but that’s just not her style). All of that can be forgiven by the audience when she takes her swing on the pole—this entire segment smacking of Christina Ricci as Layla in Buffalo ‘66.
To keep the cameos coming, Billie Eilish follows Batiste’s appearance for a poetic duet made all the more so as they each performed their first singles, respectively, “Ocean Eyes/Video Games.” At the end, the two mutually praise one another, with Eilish announcing, “This is the reason for half you bitches’ existence. Including mine.” That statement tied in nicely with Del Rey’s thesis of the night, which was: despite her critical onslaught, she was responsible for shaping a new era in music, influencing an entire generation (a.k.a. mainly Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo).
Leaving her pièce de résistance for the ending portion of the show, “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but i have it” is where Antonoff appears on piano. Del Rey, however, does not. Well, not really. Instead, she pulls a Simone and projects a hologram of herself onstage while wearing a frock that reimagines her SNL number as she deliberately twirls for the majority of the performance (that first 2012 twirl becoming a long-standing meme). Her symbolism is clear: she’s fulfilling the critical belief that she was entirely manufactured. To perform one of her most lyrically ambitious tracks is meant as a “fuck you” to that belief.
As the show winds down, she delivers the chorus to “A&W” (which formerly opened her shows before she traded it for “Without You”) a few times before singing the true finale, “Young and Beautiful.” This seeming to be a very profound choice in terms of her directing it at fans (as she did for “Without You” at the kickoff). However, her fans, through all the critical ups and downs, have showed no signs of ever ceasing to love her (their devoutness only appearing to strengthen instead). Even now that she is “old,” by Gen Z’s ageist standards (and apparently, even by Del Rey’s, who sings, “When you’re old, you’re old, like Hollywood and me” on “Margaret”). This is precisely why she answers her own question, “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?” with “I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will.” The critics, on the other hand, not so much. But that’s clearly not who this show was aimed at. No, Del Rey was tapping into the lore of her past solely for the benefit of fans. And maybe singing kind of badly and off-key was a deliberate troll on her part. Del Rey can have an ironic sense of humor like that sometimes. Or maybe, just as it was after her SNL debut, she thought, “I looked beautiful and sang fine.”
As for her “evolution” as a performer, it seems to mirror her millennial fanbase’s own evolution. Or lack thereof. Still, in many ways, trapped in the past without being able to fully evolve. Perhaps a result of being traumatized too early on in life (9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, Britney being 5150’d, etc.). But that doesn’t mean she (and her fellow millennials) haven’t picked up some new tricks along the way to build on their tried-and-true shtick.
This extends to Del Rey’s procession of motorcycles that she once again employs to ride off into the moonlight, leaving behind her F. Scott Fitzgerald-esque horn ensemble to play the audience out, back into a world of similar decay, but without as much glitter and glamor. “Manufactured” or not.
Genna Rivieccio
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