The 2024 Coachella lineup was insanely good. Artists like Doja Cat, Peso Pluma, Tyler the Creator, Ice Spice, No Doubt, and Lana Del Rey preformed at this years Coachella. For Lana Del Rey, this was a big deal. Although she is a pretty well known artist, she hasn’t always been taken seriously by the music industry, specifically after her 2012 SNL incident. Lana Del Rey performed her song “Blue Jeans” for the first time in front of the SNL audience. For some, her performance was seen as bad and tacky. This performance set a precedent for Del Ray in the worst way possible. This year Lana Del Rey was nominated for many Grammys, but she didn’t receive any. One of the Grammy judges held Lana back and said, “I haven’t taken Lana Del Rey seriously as an artist since her SNL performance.” Regardless of the minor set back, Lana has since proved herself to be an amazing artist. And by being one of the headlining singers at Coachella, she set the bar high for herself.
Now onto Lana Del Rey’s performance. She entered the stage on motorcycle while a remix of “Gangsta” by Kehlani and “Jealous Girl” by Lana Del Rey. This entrance was bringing back her “Born To Die” aesthetic mixed with her new album Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard. In 2023, Lana had a photoshoot by Mel Ottenberg to promote her new album; this entrance was inspired by the photoshoot. Her first song of the night was “Without You” from her first album. The song fused into Sublime’s “Doin’ Time/ Summertime Sadness.” Her set list consisted of songs from all of her albums. She performed “Cherry” from Lust for Life, while she still stuck to her normal choreography of the song. The most popular songs she sang were “Born to Die”, “Summertime Sadness”, “Pretty When You Cry”, “Video Games”, and “Young and Beautiful.” She sang a cover of “Ocean Eyes” with a guest appearance from Billie Eilish. They continued their duet into Lana’s song “Video Games.” One of her last songs was “Candy Necklace,” which was beautifully played with Jon Batiste on piano and vocals. I personally believe this was one of Lana’s best performances, from the outfits to the set design to the music. Everyone on the stage that night did an amazing job and really brought together Coachella.
The stage design was brilliant for her performance. Lana Del Rey has a very old timey and sad aesthetic to her. You can see this throughout her albums, Born to Die is mainly inspired by the 50’s and the rest can be interpretation. We should also remember she sang “Young and Beautiful” for the film version of The Great Gatsby, which the stage really presented. The stage perfectly matched the roaring 20’s vibe of the band on stage too. Everyone’s outfits on stage were also so beautiful and fitting. Lana wore a sparkling baby blue dress with silver boots for the first part of the performance. She eventually changed into a longer dress that somewhat resembled her SNL dress, fans believe. The other girls wore sparkly dresses as well, not one person on the stage was not on theme.
