Seeing the Hangout Fest lineup, I was beyond ecstatic to see the many of the artists set to play: Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp, Cage The Elephant and most importantly for me– Lana Del Rey. However, I was not expecting to be extremely disappointed by Lana Del Rey’s set.
After standing in the excruciating heat for hours on end, expectations for Lana Del Rey were high. As I stood, I knew that Del Rey would likely miss her 9:30 p.m. start time, as she is famous for being late. Once her start time came and went, her fans began to grow rowdy and cheered “Lana, Lana, Lana,” as they waited for her to make her grand appearance. Fans were dropping like flies from dehydration or heat exhaustion as many had waited over 8 hours to see Del Rey.
When she finally arrived, the crowd warmly welcomed her to Alabama at 10 p.m. as she rode to the stage in a parade of ATVs and American Flags while the sweet sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd played. She performed her biggest hits like “Video Games” and “Ride” along with some crowd favorites like “Bartender” and “West Coast.” While this performance was good overall, most of it was extremely lacking as I look back.
Del Rey brought out four separate guests throughout her show, while I have no issue with that, I would have preferred Del Rey singing her songs. The huge crowd had no idea who most of her guests were and stayed silent during them. Since Del Rey was comically late to her performance many fan favorites like “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd?” and “Norman F***ing Rockwell” had to be cut, but thank goodness we got to see Nessa Barrett sing her Lana Del Rey rip-off song “american jesus.” While I understand how beneficial it is for a small artist to be on stage like that, the people paid to see Lana as a headliner, and she barely performed in the short time that she forced upon herself.
Del Rey herself seemed bored with the performance and lazily danced around the stage, mostly lip-synching. When she was singing, she would sing so softly that it would be difficult to hear her.
When it was almost time for the show to end, Del Rey complained about her set time and how she couldn’t finish her set, even though she was the one who was late. While this show was disappointing, she captivated thousands of people with her music and that is not easy to do. While I wasn’t a fan of most of her guests, I enjoyed her and Jelly Roll dueting “Sweet Home Alabama” as the finale.
Overall, Hangout Fest was an incredible experience; I just wish Lana Del Rey had put more energy into her performance.
