The final night of 2023’s BST arrived with Lana Del Rey taking to the stage for the first time in the UK since she was cut off at Glastonbury just a fortnight earlier. With a line-up that may have been curated by Lana herself, the support ranged from indie folk icons to rappers with the first band I caught being Gang of Youths.
The Australian indie rockers took to the stage at three o’clock as the sun was blazing. With a ten song setlist and a sound that sounds straight out of the 90’s indie scene, the band sound like a fusion between The Killers and Pulp. Enigmatic frontman David Le’aupepe works the crowd with humour in between songs, probably not having a mass appeal with today’s crowd older members of the audience definitely appreciated them more with many dancing by the end of their set.
After Gang of Youths, I made my way over to the Rainbow Stage (second stage) where The Last Dinner Party were just starting. Now if you haven’t heard of them they’re a band met with scepticism due to the bands they’ve toured with and their rapid rise. Supporting The Rolling Stones and Nick Cave last year and then Florence and The Machine this year, it may come as a shock but they might just get the credit and popularity because they’re actually really good and not just “industry plants”. With only two singles currently released, they play seven songs which are all loved by the crowd with singer Abigail Morris often getting off the stage and singing with those at the barrier. If you were there and managed to catch their set, you were in luck because I don’t think they will be anything but main stage next time they play.
Next up was indie folk icon Father John Misty. Known to have a friendship with Lana Del Rey, he name drops her a few times which is met by roars from the crowd who may not have been fully invested in him – not that he seemed to care. Telling the crowd he was loving the idea of not having to play ‘all the fast ones, given who our headliner is’, he mixed his ballads of despair with his twisted love songs. Dropping to knees, hitting his head and prowling the stage, he has a unique approach which might confuse one or two people in Hyde Park but he’s loving every second. Filling the set with songs his 2015 album I Love You, Honeybear he croons his way through hits like ‘Goodbye Mr. Blue’ and ‘Chateau Lobby #4’ before ending on the most upbeat song of his set ‘The Ideal Husband’. Delivering a near flawless set, Father John Misty leaves the stage and it was almost time for Lana.
Scheduled to come on at 20:40, in typical Lana Del Rey fashion she shows up at 9pm which was met by a thunderous applause drowned out by a sea of screams. Now it’s not quite 90’s Axl Rose levels of timekeeping but she’s getting there, not that anyone cared though when she starts singing ‘A&W’ before ‘Young and Beautiful’ gets a massive reception. The sun had set by this point and the sky had turned pink with clouds scattered across it, making it the perfect setting for what was coming.
‘Bartender’ features her getting hair and make-up done while sat on a chair singing as backing dancers drift past her. By this the crowd is a combination of awestruck teenage girls and older fans seeming similarly blown away by her voice and presence. Not just having the look of a 50’s Hollywood star, she has the attitude and stage presence of one making slight looks into cameras and giving glimpses of a smile during songs, that is when she’s not vaping during an instrumental part.
The setlist features songs from across her discography, with a five song run of ‘Born to Die’, ‘Blue Jeans’, ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’, ‘Arcadia’ and ‘Ultraviolence’ getting pretty much as career spanning as she can. Often changing songs intros or outros and extending or shortening them, knowing she’s approaching what was a 22:10 curfew she pokes fun at Glastonbury saying ‘this is where I got cut off last time – sorry about that”.
‘Summertime Sadness’ prompts 60,000 people to sing every word in unison before the title track of her latest album Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Now before this she warns, “even if we get cut off it’s worth it”, which she thankfully didn’t because the addition of a choir to the outro made the song the highlight of the whole set. The final song came just before 22:30 and fortunately they let her finish even if they did reduce the sound levels towards the end of her viral hit ‘Video Games’.
With songs that are more suited to the intimacy of smaller venues and could very easily have been lost on the vastness of Hyde Park, Lana Del Rey made sure her headline slot was one to remember. Enchanting vocals and a mesmeric stage show made up for Glastonbury, and quite frankly embarrassed Glastonbury and their curfew showing them what they missed out on.
