The Set of Lana Del Rey in the Palomino tent in Stagecoach on Friday evening had been presented in the original advertising festival as “a set of very special countries”, but what it would imply, and if it would really look like the country of someone else, was the assumption of someone. Once the performance of 65 minutes is finished, it was always a kind of supposition of anyone – at least as long as no sketches of vignettes or easy slogan could quite understand what she was doing, apart from a few obvious gender nods.
But was it beautiful? Yes … that, more than anything else, is always his kind of basis.
There were no signals still consumed to find out if his next album would really be a country outing or not; In a way, she indicated that it was, then said that it was not the case before a reservation was announced to appear in a side tent to the most famous western country festival. In Stagecoach, she nodded to the ancestors by singing the Smash Tammy Wynette “Stand by Your Man” towards the start and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver at the very end. There was a steel on stage, and the design of production had it in the countryside, swinging on a rope swing and / or a porch swing in front of a cabin. However, there was nothing predictable in the new music that it was in the first one, nor the rearrangements for choosing familiar catalogs. It was a full lanacore in the heart.
Del Rey has a penchant to fill his songs with original and sometimes daring autobiographical details, and the new equipment seems to be just in accordance with this tradition. Admittedly, there will be no bigger surprised laughter in the history of the past of Stagecoach, present or future than that which Del Rey obtained by the name of name no less a superstar compatriot than Morgan Wallen, as part of a new song entitled “57.5”.
The title of the song takes its name from the repeated line “I obtained 57.5 million listeners on Spotify”. (Quick Spot Fackeck: Del Rey now has 59.4 million Spotify listeners, so maybe we can date the carbon of the writing of the song by how long it took him to add a total of the words.) But the real track line of the track – that she swore to sing only once before she pronounces it – is: “I kiss Morgan Wallen …”
Say what? The roar of the crowd was so noisy, even on the streaming flow, that he made the public mark on his next line (which some listeners wrote as “I suppose that kissing is somehow went to his head”). He died just long enough to hear him sing: “If you want my secret to be successful, do not go with him when you got out of the west.”
This can count like a little TMI for Lana fans who do not necessarily want this image in their minds. But curiously, it is not the only Country superstar that she checks the song; She also quotes Roger Miller, even if she makes no complaints for kissing the singer-songwriter (very late).
To make people laugh was not the large part of the rest of the performance, however. Lana was in languid mode for the entirety of the whole; Think of his headliner set in Coachella last year – the first slow parts – extended further and without the selections of taking towards the end. Del Rey does not only stay next to his man; She stands next to her own style.
In some respects, his set in Stagecoach was similar to what Post Malone did for the same field the same time last year: to make a support set intended to insert a superstar Pop in the Country public shortly before the release of an album which was labeled as for them. But in many ways, the two performances could not have been more different. Making a full set of Twangy covers in 2024, Malone clearly said he came to the Country public – they would not have to come to him. But, even if there was nothing at least little graceful or not very generous in his performance, it was more like what the public was invited to come to her.
It was not a big Ask, by the way. The public of the Palomino tent sang with each word familiar songs – in Eras turn at the volume level. The audience seen in front of the camera seemed to be 100% Lana heads that had just put pink cowboy hats for the night.
This would contrast with the public at home, probably also pierced, but with a pen in hand, trying to note all the noticeable words of the songs which obtained performances for the first time – not only “57.5” but “Marine of mine” (the probable name, at least, of the new song that opened the show “) and” Quiet in the South “.
This last song started with a prelude to Mariachi style horns, then graduated in a soft bed of piano, acoustic guitar and barely audible pedal, with Del Rey posing the musical question: “Should I light the light or burn the house?” A rhetorical question, of course. His safeguard dancers (who were more as friendly presences than doing choreography) took cans and seemed to mimic them in the cabin with gasoline. Then, the projections on the structure created the illusion of fire.
But it was not exactly the version of Del Rey of Miranda Lambert’s “Kerosene”. Even when the illusion of a house on fire was presented, everything seemed strangely serene … the sweetest version of pyromania of all time.
After that, Del Rey and his guides disappeared a little while the speakers played one of his favorite pieces, a haunting orchestral theme of the classic partition of Bernard Herrmann for “Vertigo”. Soon, a Hologram del Rey was seen annoying “Bluebird” before it and the distribution reappeared, no longer dressed in angelic white but now in crimson. They sang a moderate “summer sadness” in the most minimal acoustic style possible, as if it were a campfire song, but as they would be trouble with the forest service if they woke up campers on the way. It was charming.
The Stream Prime Video / Twitch was 50 minutes from what was going on in real time at the Indio Ground Festival, so Lana fans panicked, heading for social media to try to understand what was going on before the web. This led to certain information not always precise … as a raw version of the setlist goes on setlist.fm which said that Del Rey had made a duo with Luke Combs. She hadn’t done it; Country male singers are apparently interchangeable to some of his fans. The duo was in fact with a much less known singer who attracted a whole break with the co-signer of Del Rey, George Birge. It was not really even a duo: she seemed happy to sing a backup on her new single, “Cowboy Songs”. And after the end, she asked if they could repeat the refrain in Cappella, just because her ears did not work and that she wanted to make sure that everyone in the crowd could hear the melody even if she couldn’t. He seemed disturbed by additional attention, saying: “My heart beats out of my chest.”
The other guests were a little better known, if barely the kind of superstar cameo which is generally trotted for Coachella titles. Del Rey was joined on “Let the Light in” by the longtime secret sisters of the Americas, the brothers and sisters whose harmonies are a good match for its sopranic tone. “Can we get a cry for Alabama?” Asked the singer, noting that the sisters had gone to school with her own parents.
Thus, in terms of guests, Del Rey more or less kept the country. And yet, for most of the performance, it looked like a slightly orchestrated music which belonged at least as much on stage at the Walt Disney Concert Hall as in the desert of shit. But finally, towards the end, the Sting of-Present Quartet was able to get up and transform their violins into violins for the “country roads” of closing.
It was good news, in case the fans of Del Rey feared that it would prepare or indulge in Country Cosplay. This had nothing almost a round of 180 or a 90-degree turn … just a cruise control on a Virginia-Western countryside road. We still do not know how to characterize this kind of direction but not tortal, and it would not be surprising that it is just as difficult to take a final mastery when the album was released. For the moment, fans will be content to say, Lana, get the wheel.
Which is perhaps more confidence than you should give to someone who has just admitted to manage with Morgan Wallen, but so far, this jump that weighs the genre produces good rewards.
Lana Del Rey setlist in Stagecoach, April 25, 2025
“Me from me”
“Henry, go”
“Keep your man” (Tammy Wynette cover)
“Cowboy Songs” (coverage of George Birge and main vocal)
“To go up”
“Video games”
“Norman F-In Rockwell”
“Arcadia”
“Leave light” (with secret sisters)
“Calm to the south”
“BlueBird”
“Summer sadness”
“57.5”
“Row me at home, country roads” (Coverage of John Denver)
