Lana Del Rey at BST Hyde Park review – Vulnerable and beautiful
She had nothing to prove - but with her clear voice, arsenal of top tier songs and charming energy, Lana silenced her critics last night, writes Attitude's Jamie Tabberer
A shy woman in a billowing floral gown, hair cascading in the wind, meekly address a 65,000-strong crowd in London’s Hyde Park. “I think this is where I got cut off last time,” says Lana Del Rey, referencing her breach of curfew at Glastonbury last month. “Sorry about that.”
Casual fans were apparently furious about Lana’s prior lateness. (“My hair takes so long to do!” she innocently admitted at the time, not realising the negative headlines she’d generate in real time). But that messiness only made die-hards like me love her more.
That she was seemingly late again at last night’s British Summer Time gig – reportedly by a not insignificant 15 minutes – was agonising. Or, to be precise, both terrifying and exciting. So, when she finally emerged looking like a Sandro Botticelli painting, to cheers not boos, I was transfixed. Would she redeem herself?
Well, firstly, she’s Lana Del Rey, bitch. So she doesn’t need to. Also, the answer’s yes: she redeemed herself and then some.
Her voice may be modest, but she knows how to use it. She’s never sounded clearer or more distinctive as on ‘Arcadia’ and ‘Pretty When You Cry’. She beams with pride as her astonishing backing singers go full-on, free-style gospel choir on ‘The Grants’ and ‘Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’: two of the most gorgeously written songs of her career.
The latter gets a lavish rearrangement that turbocharges its beauty. I wished for the same for ‘A&W’. Like at Glasto, this punchy, arresting opener bleeds hip-hop funk but is over too quickly. Meanwhile, the epic ‘Ride’ and crowd-pleaser ‘Blue Jeans’ are shortened, much to my frustration.
What I wouldn’t give to curate an LDR setlist. Not that she’d ever surrender that control, of course, and rightly so. But after eight hit albums, she has a vault of songs, 90% of which are excellent – but the languid ‘White Mustang’ I’d have cut, for example. I’d also have switched out a ‘Bartender’ or two for the peppy cool of ‘West Coast’. ‘Video Games’, of course, is essential, but is actually an anticlimactic closer. The pomp and circumstance of ‘Off to the Races’ would’ve worked better.
Thankfully the daring ‘Ultraviolence’ gets an airing tonight. It’s hard to think of another song as despairingly sad, slow, and controversial that’s filled up Hyde Park this summer.
While I love her voice and artistry, what I’m most struck by tonight, however, is Lana’s charming demeanour. The aimless chatting and wandering around the stage; her gentle approach to choreo even when flanked by a trope of high-energy dancers. Singing while sitting or even lying down. Singing while getting her hair done in front of a mirror: a bit that shouldn’t work, but does. There’s something gorgeously, delicately eccentric about her that puts one in mind of Jennifer Coolidge in The White Lotus. The similarity’s never occurred to me before, but Lana and Tanya, both lovably glamorous and sweetly flawed, are cut from the same silky cloth. No wonder the gays love them.