If America was a monarchy, would Lana Del Rey be queen?
It was hard to ignore the thought as the singer walked down the stairs at the Bud Light Stage after performing “Ultraviolence” to greet her fans, take selfies, try on sunglasses, blow kisses and receive bouquets of flowers. (How do you even get a bouquet into Lollapalooza?)
It was just like you’d see in footage of a royal processional, with some fans crying, others screaming, and others streaming. It was a wild reaction, but not a totally unexpected one, for the cultural icon who has grown to her stature the past 13 years from a petri dish of Americana symbolism.
She’s Jackie O and Marilyn, she’s Frank and Nancy Sinatra, one day she’s taking a shift at a Waffle House and another day she’s headlining the biggest festival in the country. She is everything that is relatable and unattainable about the American Dream — and her fans love for her it.
Del Rey is a smart whip — while she feeds off the drama, she always provides the intrigue. Sunday night, she began the set looking like a bride with her short white Priscilla dress carrying a long train; by the end, the oversized fabric became a bedsheet to literally carry her away like we had all just watched a dream.
If Del Rey’s music wasn’t so good, it would seem truly farcical, but there’s no denying the star — born Lizzy Grant — has created some exceptional tunes over the course of her nine incredible albums, with the pomp and circumstance fitting of the pop noir grandeur.
In her Lolla set, Del Rey’s passioned delivery of “Blue Jeans” was overwhelming, while the live ballerina dancing along to “Ultraviolence” was so beautiful it became emotional. The way in which Del Rey languishes slowly over each lyric and movement in “Pretty When You Cry” made it easy to fall into a trance.
Everything about the performance carried a delicate feminine touch that made you assured you were in safe motherly arms to feel all the emotions she conjured. The butterfly clips that were placed in her hair during “Bartender,” the Maypole Midsommar scarf dance during “Chemtrails Over the Country Club,” the added details of candelabras, floral swings, a troupe of graceful dancers and a backup choir all befitting of a sovereign. For an hour and a half, we were all in LaLa Lana Land, and what an escape it was to end the weekend.
