Pure Heroine is so FUCKING GOODDDDD
this album to me is an early frosty morning in late october, train rides and sunrises, late nights and tennis courts, big bright street lights, new build estates… ugh i just love it. 2013 was a reset
Lana Del Rey’s sold-out Alabama concert: Star power, songs, spectacle
By Matt Wake | mwake@al.com
Click. Click. In between singing lyrics of her last song of the night, Lana Del Rey casually mimed taking a couple pics of the sold-out crowd.
It was, like basically everything Del Rey did during her concert last night at Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Alabama, effortlessly cool and relatable. Like something a friend would do among friends hanging out.
Except the holder of this imaginary camera was a still-in-her-prime legend who just gave 8,000 passionate, mostly young, mostly female fans a night that’ll stick with them until they’re old.
Del Rey’s 90-minute show opened with blue light and smoke onstage and Beatlemania screams in the audience. They’d also screamed huge moments earlier when the houselights finally went down. Also when Del Rey’s four-piece band took their places. Even when a guitar tech appeared for one last tune-up.
The blue lights seeped into purple and red, and Del Rey walked onstage. Poised, wearing a white mini-dress and knee-high boots. Looking like she’d teleported straight from one of her album covers. Except now, mic in hand and singing the title track to her acclaimed 2019 album, “Norman F---ing Rockwell!”. The fans gave her a fighter-jet-takeoff-volume greeting.
Musically, like much of the set, that opener was anchored by tasteful piano and string-section-emulating synth. Once the crowd noise came down and you could hear her in the mix better, Del Rey did her songbird vocals, including call-and-respond blue-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh’s with her three backing singers.
Cowritten with Jack Antonoff, the A-list producer known for his Taylor Swift collabos, “Norman Rockwell” features the kind of Del Rey lyrics that cut right to the bone. Lines like, “Why wait for the best when I could have you?” She’s probably the only singer alive who could make a lyric like, “You f---ed me so good that I almost said, ‘I love you’,” sound pretty.
Del Rey’s songwriting’s just as impressive as her laidback star-power. The melodies and arrangements never outsmart themselves. As a singer and lyricist, Del Rey revels in her femininity. She clearly loves being a woman even if it isn’t always easy. She sounds both young and from another era. Vivacious yet world weary.
Del Rey’s a better than good singer with great feel, which along with her songwriting, really connects with her audience. Her vocal range includes a celestial falsetto. But she isn’t glass-shattering belter, so (as my friend pointed out) fans can sing right along in the same key. During last night’s Orion Amphitheater crowd sang with her much of the show. They knew literally every word – from the early stuff to songs from the four albums Del Rey’s released in the last four years. (Her discography now includes nine albums.)
At the Huntsville show, “Young and Beautiful,” an orchestral pop stunner from 2013 film “The Great Gatsby,” was a massive singalong. Much of Del Rey’s audience is comprised of girls in their teens, 20s and early 30s.
In her songs, Del Rey’s singing about her life but their life too. It’s easy for fans to slip inside the lyrics of songs like “Young and Beautiful,” cowritten with Adele collaborator Rick Nowels: “Hot summer days, rock and roll. The way you’d play for me at your show and all the ways I got to know your pretty face and electric soul. Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?”
Between fully performed songs, Del Rey slipped in shortened versions of recent standouts like “Arcadia” and “A&W.” A short but sweet “Diet Mountain Dew,” with its hip-hop groove and “you’re no good for me” hook, charged the crescent moon lit night. Other bite-sized renditions: the travelogue “Ride”; and “The Grants,” the stirring gospel-tinged and family-themed (Del Rey was born with the surname Grant) “Ocean Blvd” opener.
One of the things Del Rey’s music is known for is its cinematic quality. Her Orion set was like living inside an arthouse film with a cool soundtrack.
As a recording artist, Del Rey is an iconoclast singer/songwriter. Femme-fatale alto, auteur lens, but with a mall-girl heart and pop-art pen. Onstage she adds pop-star/Broadway spectacle to that.
At the Orion show, a troupe of six female dancers gave physical expressions to Del Rey and her four-piece band. The band included a pianist, drummer, and two keyboardists who also picked up guitar and bass for some songs.
During much of the set, Del Rey stood center stage at the mic stand. Gently grooving with the music but focused on singing. Occasionally she walked up stairs leading towards the back of the stage, where oversized gilded frames, with curtains hanging down for silhouette effect for the dancers, were stationed.
At times, hot red LED lights punctuated the stage. Other times, the performers were bathed in psychedelic patterns. A big video screen behind the stage flickered with vintage looking images and other moody textures.
Most songs in the set went right into the next. Even though the show’s mostly ballads, the energy in the venue remained electric throughout. This was impressive.
Del Rey paused for fan interaction a few times. For melancholic piano ballad “Bartender,” she walked to the front of stage right. Before starting the song, she talked about going to a local Huntsville mall the day before, where she ran into fans shopping for their outfits for this show.
Onstage at Orion, she thanked fans for the gifts and jewelry they’d given her during her Huntsville stay, as well as notes they’d written her. “I read every one,” she said.
Then, Del Rey sat down at a vanity at stage right. A stylist came out and did her hair as Del Rey crooned and cooed the words to “Bartender.” Meanwhile, the singer’s dancers swayed while holding candelabras aloft.
Last night, Del Rey left most of the dancing to her dancers, but she did join in for some brief choreography a few times, which always goosed the crowd. Honestly though, Del Rey could pour herself a bowl of cereal onstage and her fans would go nuts.
Del Rey is to her young fans what Stevie Nicks is to many women in their 30s, and 40s and 50s. And like at a Nicks show, many of the fans at Del Rey’s Huntsville show were dressed in the style of the star onstage. So many white mini dresses. Enough barrettes to fill a Volkswagen. Maybe a mile or two of hair ribbons.
Many fans who weren’t doppelganging had on slinky outfits. Others wore T-shirts and jewelry inspired by Del Rey’s songs and imagery. It adds up to Deadhead levels of commitment, but way healthier and less smelly.
Earlier in the night, opening act Zella Day got the concert off to a hot start. Accompanied by a hard-hitting drummer and nifty keyboardist, Day sang and played electric guitar while exuding charisma. Her originals connected ‘60s pop-rock and ‘90s alternative. Set highlights included a cover of Paul McCartney’s classic “Let Me Roll It.” Day dedicated a performance of her sauntering 2022 song “Girls” to Del Rey, who she described as a longtime friend and a “girls’ girl.”
Reductionists file her under “sad girl music.” But Del Rey smiled a lot onstage last night. Mid-set, she and her band played a couple cover songs they appeared to relish.
First, a twangy version of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man.” Del Rey’s vocals proved worthy of this old-school country ballad. Next, a jazzy “Summertime,” the George Gershwin standard Janis Joplin popularized in the ‘60s with an acid-rock version.
Del Rey’s vocals and keyboards were the show’s sonic guts. But there were some guitar moments. Her guitarist played a Jimmy Page-style Danelectro (like the kind Page played on live performances of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” but a 12-string) on “Ultraviolence,” the title cut from Del Rey’s most guitar-y album. Live, this one was given a longer outro.
With so many songs that have been streamed hundreds of millions of times, Del Rey can’t fit every beloved cut into the set. I would’ve loved to have heard her sidewinding 2013 rocker “West Coast.”
That said, even as a primarily hard-rock/heavy-metal listener, I found every second of Del Rey’s show riveting. Songs, singing, star-power and presentation are what matters most in music. Not instrumentation or genre.'
Deep into the 19-song set -- I think after that diet version of “Diet Mountain Dew” -- the show stopped. Del Rey walked down stairs to the area between the stage and the barricade that marks the front of the standing room only section on the venue’s floor.
For the next 10 minutes or so, she took selfies with fans, and signed autographs. Fans in the front gave her handmade gifts, including a bedazzled cap with “Alabama” across the front.
I’ve seen hundreds of concerts in my lifetime. The only other star I recall doing a similar display of gratitude for their fans is Elton John. Early in her career, some music writers questioned Del Rey’s authenticity. What a joke that take is now.
After this mid-concert quasi meet-and-greet, Del Rey returned to the stage for a sweeping run through “Summertime Sadness.” This version had more guitar than the original.
It was truly epic. A five-minute mini-movie of a song. When Del Rey got to the lyric “I’m feeling alive,” her backing vocalists increased from three to 8,000. Orion Amphitheater lifted up about six inches in that moment.
This summer, Del Rey, who has family in the Florence area about an hour’s drive from Huntsville, was seen out and about in Alabama several times. Those include her now-viral stint as a Waffle House waitress and an impromptu recording session at hallowed studio Muscle Shoals Sound.
After finishing “Summertime Sadness” last night, Del Rey said to the Alabama crowd, “There is no place I’d be rather be most of the time, especially tonight.”
Then, she and the band went into “Video Games,” the “Stairway to Heaven” of sad girl music. In addition to the gorgeous production and spellbinding vocal, the lyrics’ specific details are vivid. “Kissin’ in the blue dark. Playing pool and wild darts, video games.” She sang this one while leisurely swinging onstage from a swing that looked like it was constructed by fairies.
Del Rey’s recent concerts have ended with “Video Games.” But at Orion Amphitheater, after telling the crowd she was “feeling happy,” she gave them one more song.
Seated centerstage next to her talented backing singers, they did the haunting title track off her latest album, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd”. This is when Del Rey did that aforementioned, mimed-camera click-click.
Of course, fans documented the show too, with terabytes of their own real pics and vids. A couple of times, this turned the amphitheater into a sea of smartphone screens.
As “Ocean Blvd” neared its end, Del Rey and her backing singers stood and continued singing. She waved to the crowd and sang the song’s outro, “Don’t you, don’t you forget me, no oh,” as she walked off stage.
Just like that, Lana Del Rey was gone. The band carried on for a few bars before grinding to a halt. On the stage’s video screen, an old-timey-movie font flickered “THE END.”
I’ve been to other concerts where the crowd goes wild and loud when the show starts, and for that act’s biggest songs. But Del Rey’s fans do this at the beginning and end of every song. No wonder -- unlike stars who seem trapped by success -- Lana Del Rey enjoys being Lana Del Rey now more than ever.
Lana: that’s why they call me Lanita
White English speaking Twitter users: that’s so problematique!!!
Mexicans last night: Lana, hermana, ya eres mexicana
If she dropped an album that was just front to back bops it would never leave the BB200… and we know she’s capable of it like idk she needs to MOVE before she hits her 40s and decides to make country music or something
The connoisseur is happy to come across this live soundcheck. It is as though Lana recorded it specially for her fans! You experts can tell me which songs are represented!
I don't really want to die
I just want the pain to be over
I know that I talked about it all the time, babe
Just wanted you to come over
I got tired of America
It got hard to stay sober
Then I met you and you blew my mind
That was it, game over
We can get lost in the purple rain
Talk about the good old days
I could get drunk on some pink champagne
Lost in the purple haze
Let me love you like a woman
Let me hold you like a baby
Let me shine like a diamond
Let me be your one time beauty queen
You don't know the world like I do
You don't know how good our love can be
Let me love you like a woman
Let me take you to infinity
Ah, baby, ah
Take you to infinity
Ah, baby, ah
I don't really want to fly
I just want this tour to be over
I know that I dreamed about it all my life
Then the dream got closer
I miss the smell of America
Green palms, green clover
I can still feel it when I close my eyes
It comes right over
We can get lost in a purple maze
Think about the good old times
Let it come down like the ocean waves
Hold your body in my mind
Let me love you like a woman
Let me hold you like a baby
Let me shine like a diamond
Let me be your one time beauty queen
You don't know the world like I do
You don't know how good people can be
Let me love you like a woman
Let me take you to infinity
Ah, baby, ah
Take you to infinity
Ah, baby, ah
I n-n-n-need you
Don't, don't fucking leave yet
I need, n-n-n-need you
Don't fu-, don't fucking leave yet
Let me love you like a woman
Let me love you like a baby
Let me shine like a diamond
Let me be your one time beauty queen
You don't know the world like I do
You don't know how good people can be
Let me love you like a woman
Let me love you like a baby
Ah, baby, ah
Take you to infinity
Ah, baby, ah
Take you to infinity
Ah, baby, ah
Get drunk on some pink champagne
Get lost in the purple haze
not at all... he is a perfect complement and i would love to hear more music from them together.
this song wouldn't work (as well) without him. it would still sound incredible with Lana singing the verses too, but this is so much more powerful
Just broke up with my boyfriend. Thankfully the album isn’t too far away… it’s gonna be a pretty baby summer girlies and boys. Someone give me taco truck immediately
lowkey hope so, i mean Lana is a versatile artist but it does feel like in the last three albums (ocean blvd, cocc and bb) she is kinda not leaving a certain comfort zone she created for herself kinda relying on the same elements for most of her tracks minus some songs (i said MINUS SOME SONGS i swear if someone replys with "what about peppers??)
and while the results can be great i feel like if she doesn't switch her main sound up a bit for the next album it could start to get very repetitive
i mean just look at BTD-UV-HONEYMOON three completely different sounds back to back, that diversity is lacking in her recent projects and again, i'm sure Ocean Blvd is gonna be great, but for the next album i think she should go back to exploring again
Omg this is what I’m most afraid of - Ocean Boulevard being similar to COCC and BB and then she keeps in this comfort zone… I really dislike COCC and BB, sorry guys when I heard COCC I was sure that I would never dislike more a Lana’s album, and then BB came out
Ocean Boulevard title track didn’t get me either as I thought it was a more produced version of BBS songs so I’m afraid she continues that way. oh but I didn’t hear any leaks so I may be reaaaally wrong (hope so )
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