Lana Del Rey takes it slow and energizes fans at her sold-out Kansas City concert
The inscrutable Lana Del Rey revealed a glimmer of candor at the Uptown Theater on Thursday. The musician renowned for her impassive demeanor broke character to sincerely apologize for canceling her 2018 concert at the Sprint Center when she had the flu.
Del Rey’s current tour of substantially smaller theaters provided a capacity audience of 2,400 an intimate encounter with the illustrious celebrity.
The woman born Elizabeth Woolridge Grant in 1985 is a modern-day torch singer in the traditions of the steely crooner Julie London and the droll cabaret artist Marlena Dietrich. Del Rey’s songs are laced with profanity and contain intimations of hip-hop, but her approach doesn’t reflect contemporary trends in popular music.
Collaborations with guest artists emphasized Del Rey’s singularity on Thursday. Nouveau country entertainer Nikki Lane and Iowa-based singer-songwriter Lissie each performed a song with her. In addition to possessing powerful voices that overwhelmed Del Rey’s slight but malleable instrument, Lane and Lissie exude the sort of emotional immediacy that Del Rey shuns.
Del Rey’s listlessness in her 2012 appearance on “Saturday Night Live” was widely ridiculed. She’s enjoying the last laugh. Del Rey elevated sluggishness into an art form in the intervening years. Two beguiling dancers provided visual stimulation that the largely stationary Del Rey didn’t attempt to provide on Thursday. Augmented by liberal use of backing tracks, Del Rey and her three-piece backing band interpreted her relentlessly slow but unfailingly compelling songs.
The glacial pace occasionally quickened to leisurely trot, but the torpor added intrigue to the film noir-style “Bartender,” the menacing “White Mustang” and “Blue Jeans,” a song with the melodrama associated with the themes of James Bond movies. The drowsy martial beat that accentuated “Video Games” made the controversial song even more disturbing.
Del Rey is often accused of not exhibiting sufficient feminism in lyrics to songs like “Video Games,” but Del Rey conveyed formidable strength and independence throughout Thursday’s concert. Her rendition of “For Free,” Joni Mitchell’s composition about the capricious nature of fame, may have been a subtle criticism of the misguided members of the audience who ignored Lissie’s opening set and rarely stopped screeching during her 90-minute appearance.
Yet the inability of giddy fans to contain themselves is understandable. Not only does Del Rey’s new album contains her best work, Thursday’s outing at an implausibly small venue demonstrated that she’s learned how to make her languid sensibility spellbinding.
Set list
Norman F****** Rockwell; Bartender; For Free; Look Away; Born to Die; Blue Jeans; Cherry; White Mustang; Pretty When You Cry; Change/Black Beauty/Young and Beautiful/Ride; Video Games; They All Want You; Cinnamon Girl; Shades of Cool; Summertime Sadness; Doin’ Time; Off to the Races; Venice Bitch
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 7:30 AM.