When you’re Lana Del Rey, you can do whatever the fuck you want. You can postpone your country album, rename it, and then admit it’s not really a country album. You can play a main stage-worthy performance at Stagecoach, bring out little-known country singers for duets of their songs and your own, and you can reveal mid-performance that you kissed the most famous, uber-controversial country artist of the time.
At Stagecoach Friday night, the ethereal vocalist didn’t just play a “special” country music set, as Stagecoach advertised. Instead, she played a quintessential Lana Del Rey set with gorgeous new songs, bold confessions, a few country classics, and a hologram. Because she can.
Amid chants of “We want Lana,” Del Rey emerged out of a small, bluish cottage (reminiscent of Miss Honey’s abode in Matilda) and transformed the desert stage into a fairytale bayou. Dressed in a Sixties milkmaid dress, the singer sent the crowd into a roar as she opened her performance with a touching song, “Husband of Mine,” dedicated to Jeremy Dufrene, whom she married last year. The song is a gorgeous love ballad praying that the world “give grace” to their unconventional love story.
“I apologize in advance for what they’ll say about the lines on your face/They’re a road map of your lovely life,” she sang, later adding in the chorus: “What’s yours is mine/What’s mine is between you, me, and Jesus.” Onstage, she looked like a Disney princess proclaiming her romance for her airboat captain lover.
Del Rey continued with “Henry, Come On,” the “come on and giddy up” single she dropped earlier this month to lead The Right Person Will Stay, her forthcoming tenth album. The stans in the crowd sang along as Del Rey took a seat in the middle of the stage to play the track with touches of country music. “Oh my goodness,” said Del Rey onstage. “It never ceases to surprise me the volume in the crowd. I swear to god. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being with us.”
Del Rey continued with her now-iconic cover of “Stand By Your Man,” which she played on several stops of her last tour, as her onstage background dancers waltzed to the Tammy Wynette classic. Things got real country as Del Rey welcomed George Birge to perform his country chart-topping track “Cowboy Songs” with her.
After playing the classic country song backed by her band, Del Rey asked Birge to have the two of them play the song’s chorus acoustically to highlight their voices. ”Yo, my heart is beating out of my chest,” Birge told the crowd before the pair sang along one more time. “I’m just torturing people up here!” Del Rey joked. (Throughout the set, she asked the crowd if it could hear her since she seemed to have issues hearing her own voice in her in-ears. You could blame the roaring crowd for that!)
Del Rey then took fans on a journey through her classic discography, sitting on her signature swing to perform shortened versions of some of her biggest hits, like “Ride” and “Video Games.” She then transitioned into “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” blending verses together and skipping the line, “He fucked me so good that I almost said ‘I love you,’” which the crowd sang in her place. It may have been a subtle signal that she’s moved on to something deeper and more fulfilling in love.
Del Rey then welcomed Alabama-born duo the Secret Sisters to provide country twangy backing vocals for “Let the Light In,” a track from Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd that she’d never played live before. It felt like fairytale storytelling from Del Rey.
Del Rey next debuted a fiery, Americana-leaning track titled “Quiet in the South,” singing from a dining table inside a cottage set, directing her words to a love who failed to treat her right. “Are you coming home tonight?” she asks. “Should I turn off the light or burn down your house?” Her dancer embodied the lyrics, pouring gas cans around the bayou cottage and setting it ablaze, courtesy of a projector’s haunting glow on the stage.
After the house “burned down,” a holographic Del Rey appeared onstage in a stunning red dress, gently playing with a blue bird during an interlude for “Bluebird.” The hologram served as a seamless segue into “Summertime Sadness,” which begins with the lyric, “I’ve got my red dress on tonight.” As the real Del Rey stepped out in a crimson gown with her hair in perfect curls, phones shot into the air for the performance’s climax. It was a powerful reminder to the cowboy hat–clad crowd of the star power and presence of the chanteuse before them.
And why not end the show with a bit of drama? While debuting “57.5,” written about her monthly listeners on Spotify (it’s gone up since she wrote the song it seems… also what a campy topic to sing about!), where she sneaked in a mention of a rendezvous experience with country music’s hero-villain. “I kissed Morgan Wallen/I guess kissing me kind of went to his head,” Del Rey sang after sharing it would be the “last time” she says that lyric out loud. “If you want my secret to success/I suggest don’t go ATVing with him when you’re out west.”
For her big finale, Del Rey welcomed her guests onstage for a sing-along rendition of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” accompanied by a pedal steel and her full band. Even Zach Bryan, who headlined Stagecoach Friday, knew that Del Rey’s set was magical. “Never in my life did I think I’d be on stage at the same time as Lana Del Rey,” he said as fans piled into the T-Mobile Mane Stage area to see him after Del Rey. “She’s the absolute best.”
Friday’s performance was Del Rey at her finest, delivering everything fans could hope for from the cult-favorite queen: new songs, beloved classics, romance, and just the right touch of drama. It’s clear she’s in the best moment of her life—and her career—and things are only getting better from here.
Friday’s performance precedes the release of her 10th studio album, The Right Person Will Stay, which is expected later this year. The singer had originally announced an album named Lasso last year but ended up scrapping the LP.
Last summer, she teamed up with Quavo for country-rap “Tough.” (She skipped the song on Friday.) Just weeks before her Stagecoach set, the singer released a pair of singles “Henry, Come On,” and “Bluebird,” which she said was inspired by a real-life experience. The songs stuck to Del Rey’s airy sound, but with slight country influences. “All my albums are somewhat rooted in Americana… so I don’t think it will be a heavy departure,” she told Vogue last year. “If anything, it will just be a little lighter lyrically, and more pointed in a classic country, American, or Southern Gothic production — which again, so many of my songs already are.”
