Lana Del Rey at Coachella

The full show

Loved the duet with Billie Eilish. I don’t think Lana’s new beauties Tay Tay will appreciate her calling Billie the voice of our generation.

“Your mom called, I told her, you’re fucking up big time.”

She looks great, I’ll watch the full set tomorrow.

I like her so much better than Tay Tay.

R4 anyone with a modicum of taste does. Taylor is a PR titan but her music is self-indulgent and hollow. Her perspective is boring and appeals to the lowest common denominator. She is a boring artist. When I listen to Lana's songs, I at least get the sense that someone with a soul has written/is singing them.

She's a horrible performer and can't sing live to save her life. Her whole performance was just terrible.

This is the first Coachella in 12 years that didn't sell out. It took the first weekend over a month to sell out, and weekend 2 is still not sold out. Mainly because the lineup is so weak. Compare that to Beyonce and Ariana Grande's Coachellas that sold out both weekends in a couple of hours.

R6 yet I'd still rather see her crappy lives over anything Taylor Swift has done.

R7, I agree with you there.

Glad she's Ozempicing, the pudge was getting out of hand.

Coachella used to be indie music. It was the best. I went in 2004, 2008, 2010, 2011.

Couldn't pay me to go now. It's too pop. I don't mind seeing a Gaga or Beyonce or Billie or whomever, but not at Coachella.

(I love Lana, btw. But she really is a terrible performer.)

If she's doing Ozempic, she needs to double down.

She's still big as a damn house.

I love some of her songs but she really is a terrible live performer. And she's been bad for over a decade. Honestly, it feels deliberate at this point. Like she doesn't rehearse enough or even try to correct her weak spots.

I agree that she's a better studio artist than she is live. Brilliant songwriter. No, she doesn't have a lot of stage charisma, and the theatrics/backup dancers look goofy as hell to me. I've seen her live a couple of times (once in the front row at a general admission show) and her performances are hit or miss. I truly think she's better suited for small clubs, but she's so famous now that it's impractical.

R11 she's thin compared to what she looked like a few years ago. I was starting to get worried.

R10 Coachella was never indie. It was always a corporate festival for mainstream music

That was a dreadful performance of a boring drone of a ditty.

I’ve seen her twice live. She sings live and isn’t terrible but it’s very much a dreamy, hazy, midtempo affair.

Yeah she’s not a great live performer. She is making more effort now though, with some stage setup and dancers. She used to just look like she’d half-heartedly strolled in off the street and wandered back out when she’d sung a few songs in a low energy fashion.

I love her though, she’s unique and talented and her output is both prolific and consistent. She doesn’t get the credit she deserves.

R18 I'm ok with that. I wouldn't want her to have the annoying stan army of Swift. LDR music can just be enjoyed. Taylor needs drama and mystery eggs to be interesting.

I think she's a brilliant songwriter and I love her albums. That being said, I've seen enough cringe worthy live YouTube videos to vow never to see her live. So what?

She’s at a good weight here.

Maybe she couldn’t afford a big production show when she first started out?

She does a decent live version of "Chelsea Hotel No. 2", performing here with Adam Cohen:

They say Grimes was awful

The Alexa of pop.

Grimes had technical issues apparently. I don’t understand why she was there. Her output is sporadic and not very good these days.

R26 speaking of performers who can really cut it live, I think Grimes is far worse off than Lana. Her music isn’t really even suited for live permanence. From what I read, she was just doing a DJ set, which makes it even weirder that it went down so terribly.

R27, Why do they even need DJ sets at Coachella?

R28 not sure really. Also, I didn’t realize how many typos were in my post—oops

I've seen Lana live three times. Thankfully, each time was a good show. Her Hollywood Bowl '19 concert was amazing.

R28 Because that is the state of modern popular music now for low quintile Millennials and Gen Z (the core Coachella market demographic). Kids taking molly or ketamine and jumping up and down to the BPM surge of IDM etc. And though Coachella was always "corporate" (I mean, what of this scale in the last 40 years hasn't been?), it once was where real alternative acts, cutting edge, breaking artists... would be showcased. This year's lineup: DJs, digital products, hip hop, old bands (Blur, Sublime), and.... Lana Del Rey as a headlliner? Huh? A few of her songs are interesting, her lyrics suggest an intelligence lurking, her husky/pretty cabaret-ready crooning... live she is so slow-minded... walking around like she's going to the refrigerator for snacks (and he weight loss didn't hide her fat back and thicc thighs).... half her set she actually sat down to sing. Low energy which her "dancers" walking around with bedazzled girl outfits (a headliner at a cutting edge festival? ok, let me dress like a 17 year old figure skater)... I loved when she was standing (leaning on a rail) with Eilish... "let's hear it for the voice of our generation!!)... then, old and chubby, she checks herself..."er, YOUR generation" Baffling.

Vampire Weekend and Khruangbin were the most interesting acts of the weekend.

She's a mood I'd rather avoid.

She is really not suited to big festivals even if she has the audience for it. I saw her twice, once in a stadium setting and once in a smaller club - she was much, much better in that one.

I also think she’s become very boring as both as an artist and performer since she’s become critically acclaimed with Jack Antonoff. She just sounds like all the other girls he produces now - she was so exciting early on because of her experimental pop sound.

Looks fabulous though! Wonder if her and Jesse Plemons see the same Ozempic guy?

I went to Coachella a handful of times over the 2000s, the last time I went was 2011. Everyone dressed very casually, no influencer glut and there was a good deal of alternative/rock music, which had something of a golden period in the 90s-2000s. A lot of name musicians also were just hanging around as part of the crowd, smoking and drinking with everyone else. Saw a guy get into it with Amy Winehouse in 2007, ha.

Frankly, I had seen nearly all of the bands/artists ant Coachella outside of the festival prior (or afterwards) and they were uniformly a lot better, but the atmosphere was pretty great, seriously. Better than “old” Lollapalooza (in my home city of Chicago).

R33 Agree, I don't like her songs with Jack Antonoff. It's not catchy.

I keep waiting for her to work on a whole album with Rick Nowels or Dan Auerbach again.