Lana Del Rey cements herself as a Cult Icon at Coachella

Lana del Rey brought her ethereal Venus energy to the Coachella main stage as she closed out Friday night at the festival. This marked her first appearance at Coachella since 2014.

Perched on the back of a motorcycle, Del Rey calmly rode to the stage with a full motorcade trailing behind her. Moments from her 2012 song “Jealous Girl” played over the speakers — “Baby, I'm a gangster too/And it takes two to tango” — before she took the stage in a sparkling baby blue dress.

Del Rey commanded her set with gentle power, swanning between ballerinas and aerial dancers as she sang ballads dating back to her early years. sat humbly on a flower-covered table cradle as she performed “Ride,” followed by “Born to Die.” When a faulty microphone began to cut off her audio stream, she coolly handled the sound problem by swapping microphones in the shadows. He returned to the stage and performed songs from Did you know there's a tunnel under Ocean Avenue?the album released last May.

After her dazzling performance of 'Norman F-ing Rockwell,' Del Rey opened for the Grammy-winning artist and composer John Baptiste to play the piano during her mesmerizing performance of 2023's “Candy Necklace.” Del Rey first sang while perched atop the golden grand piano, then was met with screams from the crowd as she circled a pole on the other side of her scene.

Billie Eilishwho has credited Del Rey as someone who “change music for girls,” sat opposite the headliner on a gilded balcony overlooking the main stage. With an assist from Del Rey, Eilish sang her 2016 hit, “Ocean Eyes.” They also sang Del Rey's 2012 song “Video Games”, which was met with a loud chant from the audience.

“Get the f— out of my face!” said Ailis, in awe of the circumstances.

Eilish's Del Rey said: “This is the voice of a generation!”

Singer-songwriter and collaborator of Del Rey Jack Antonoff took the piano while Del Rey launched into “Hope is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me To Have — But I Have It.” She slowly turned backstage as she sang, leaving behind a hologram of herself as her haunting proxy on stage. Her natural form returned for a funky rendition of “A&W,” before ending with the evocative closer, 2013's “Young & Beautiful.”

Del Rey left in a more queenly fashion, waving from the back of the motorcycle she was riding. Naturally, her exit was met with a dose of high drama: fans buckling, fireworks going off and a ragtime outro from a live jazz band.

Lana's appearance at Coachella is the singer's first since announcing her upcoming country music album — her tenth album overall — later this year. During a pre-Grammy event in February, the singer revealed that she was dropping the record, titled Lasso, In September. (He didn't mention this on Friday night's set.)

“If you can't already tell from our award winners and our performers, the music industry is going country,” he told the crowd in February. “We're going to the country. It happens.”

Last year, the singer went on a short tour of the South and performed her biggest show to date, headlining two nights at Mexico City's Foro Sol in August 2023. There, she performed a cover of Tammy Wynette's 1969 song “Stand By Your Man', along with songs from Did you know there is a tunnel under Ocean Avenue?.

“At the core of Ocean Blvd is Del Rey trying to take a closer look at herself, twisting the story as we understand (and maybe even misunderstand) what she's trying to tell us,” it reads Rolling rock LP review. “Through stories of her family, a failed relationship, her conflicted desire to be seen and to be hidden, Del Rey exposes more than who she is, but also why she is who she is.”