It should be pointed out that Lana Del Rey’s ability to learn from her mistakes is on par with her ability to reach those contralto notes and flutter her eyelashes.
When her first attempts to become a singer failed, she reinvented herself and emerged as Lana Del Rey – the flower-crowned, doe-eyed, pouty-lipped beauty with a vocal range as thick as her hair.
And when her performance on Saturday Night Live proved to be not much more than a display of her inability to spin in a circle in her long dress, she changed direction.
Her stage show now features a string quartet, half the Amazon forest, and a much shorter dress, which makes spinning in circles much easier. When she appeared from backstage, she walked straight to the edge and lowered herself into a crowd of screaming, iPhone-clutching girls and boys with flowers in their hair. It seemed she could do no wrong. But after a couple of songs, one thing became obvious. Although she looked beautiful and her voice was powerful, she seemed to be suffering from over-rehearsal. This is hardly anything to complain about except that she sometimes came across as bored.
Though her lyrics are laden with pathos, you couldn’t always feel it. She seemed to be thinking not of doomed love but memorised sheet music and whether to turn clockwise or counter-clockwise the next time.
A cover of ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ went over the heads of a lot of the younger audience members, but props to Lana Del Rey for achieving what she set out to do: “to be seen as a good singer and not much more than that.”
Tags: enmore theatre, lana del rey
