Lana Del Rey‘s set in the Palomino tent at Stagecoach Friday night had been billed in the original festival advertising as “a very special country set,” but what that would entail, and whether it would truly resemble anyone else’s version of country, was anybody’s guess. After the 65-minute performance was over, it was still kind of anybody’s guess — at least inasmuch as no thumbnail sketch or easy catchphrase could quite nail down what exactly she was up to, apart from a few obvious genre nods.
But was it beautiful? Yes… that, more than anything else, is still her base genre.
There have been not-always-consistent signals about whether her forthcoming album would really be a country release or not; she kind of indicated it was, then said it wasn’t, all before a booking was announced for her to appear in a side tent at the most famous country festival in the West. At Stagecoach, she nodded to forebears by singing the Tammy Wynette smash “Stand by Your Man” near the beginning and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” at the very end. There was a steel player on stage, and the production design had her in the countryside, swinging on a rope swing and/or porch swing in front of a cabin. Yet there was nothing predictably country about the new music she was premiering, or the rearrangements of familiar catalog choices. It was full Lanacore at the core.
Del Rey has a penchant for filling her songs with quirky and sometimes bold autobiographical details, and the new material appears to be right in line with that tradition. Certainly there will be no bigger startled laugh in the history of Stagecoach past, present or future than the one Del Rey got by name-checking no less a fellow superstar than Morgan Wallen, as part of a new song called “57.5.”
The title of the song takes its name from the repeated line “I got 57.5 million listeners on Spotify.” (Quick spot fact-check: Del Rey now has 59.4 million Spotify listeners, so maybe we can carbon-date the writing of the song by how long it took her to add to the lyrics’ total.) But the real keeper line of the track — which she vowed to sing only once before she uttered it — is: “I kissed Morgan Wallen…”
Say what? The crowd roar was so loud, even on the streaming feed, that it had the audience stepped on her next line (which some listeners wrote down as “I guess kissing me kind of went to his head”). It died down just long enough to hear her sing: “If you want my secret to success, don’t go ATVing with him when you’re out west.”
That may count as a little TMI for Lana fans who don’t necessarily want that picture in their minds. But oddly, that’s not the only country superstar she name-checks in the song; she also cites Roger Miller, although she does not make any claims about having kissed the late (very late) singer-songwriter.
Getting a laugh wasn’t what much of the rest of the performance was about, though. Lana was in languid mode for the entirety of the set; think of her headlining set at Coachella last year — the early, slow parts — extended further and without the pick-me-up selections near the end. Del Rey doesn’t just stand by her man; she stands by her own style.
In some ways, her set at Stagecoach was similar to what Post Malone was doing on the same grounds this time last year: doing a support set meant to ingratiate a pop superstar to the country audience shortly before the release of an album that has been tagged as being for them. But in many ways, the two performances couldn’t have been more different. Doing a full set of twangy covers in 2024, Malone made it clear that he was coming to the country audience — they wouldn’t have to come to him. But, even though there was nothing the slightest bit ungracious or ungenerous about her performance, it was felt more like the audience being asked to come to her.
This wasn’t a big ask, by the way. The audience in the Palomino tent sang along with every word of the familiar songs — at Eras Tour-level volumes. The audience seen on camera appeared to be 100% Lana-heads who just happened to have put on pink cowboy hats for the night.
This would be in contrast to the audience at home, likely equally transfixed but with pen in hand, trying to jot down every discernible lyric of the songs that were getting first-time performances — not just “57.5” but “Husband of Mine” (the probable name, at least, of the new tune that opened the show”) and “Quiet in the South.”
That latter song began with a prelude of mariachi-style horns, then graduated to a gentle bed of piano, acoustic guitar and barely audible pedal steel, with Del Rey asking the musical question: “Should I turn on the light, or burn down the house?” A rhetorical question, of course. Her backup dancers (who were around more as friendly presences than doing choreography) took some canisters and appeared to be miming dousing the cabin with gasoline. Then projections onto the structure created the illusion of fire.
But this was not exactly Del Rey’s version of Miranda Lambert’s “Kerosene.” Even when the illusion of a burning house was being presented, everything felt strangely serene… the most gentle version of pyromania ever.
After that, Del Rey and her accompanists disappeared for a bit while the speakers played one of her favorite tracks, a haunting orchestral theme from Bernard Herrmann’s classic score for “Vertigo.” Soon, a hologram Del Rey was seen warbling “Bluebird” before she and the cast reappeared, no longer clad in angelic white but now in crimson. They sang a subdued “Summertime Sadness” in the most minimal acoustic style possible, like it was a campfire song, but like they’d get in trouble with the forest service if they awakened the campers down the path. It was lovely.
The Prime Video/Twitch stream was 50 minutes behind what was happening in real time at the festival grounds in Indio, so Lana fans were freaking out, heading to social media to try to figure out what was going on before the webcast. This led to some not always accurate information being presented… like a crude version of the setlist going up on Setlist.fm that claimed Del Rey had done a duet with Luke Combs. She had not; male country singers are apparently interchangeable to some of her fans. The duet was actually with a much lesser-known singer who caught quite a break from Del Rey’s co-sign, George Birge. It really wasn’t even a duet: She seemed happy just to sing backup on his new single, “Cowboy Songs.” And after it was over, she asked if they could repeat the chorus a cappella, just because her in-ears weren’t working and she wanted to make sure everyone in the crowd could hear the tune even if she couldn’t. He seemed flustered by the extra attention, saying, “My heart’s beating out of my chest.”
The other guests were a little better-known, if hardly the kind of superstar cameo that usually gets trotted out for headlines at Coachella. Del Rey was joined on “Let the Light In” by the longtime Americana favorites Secret Sisters, the siblings whose harmonies are a good match for her sopranic tone. “Can we get a shoutout for Alabama?” the singer asked, noting the sisters had gone to school with her own kin.
So, guest-wise, Del Rey was more or less keeping it country. And yet, for most of the performance, it felt like lightly orchestrated music that would belong at least as much on the stage at L.A.’s Walt Disney Concert Hall as out in the shit-kicking desert. But finally, toward the end, the oft-present sting quartet got to stand up and turn their violins into fiddles for the closing “Country Roads.”
This was all good news, in case any Del Rey fans were worried she would be pandering, or indulging in country cosplay. It didn’t count as anything close to a 180, or a 90-degree turn… just cruise control on a West Virginia country road. It’s still unclear how to characterize this sort-of-but-not-totally new direction, and it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s just as hard to get a definitive handle on by the time the album comes out. For now, fans will just be content to say, Lana, take the wheel.
Which is maybe more trust than you should give to someone who just admitted to making out with Morgan Wallen, but so far, this leap of genre-bending faith is producing the right rewards.
Lana Del Rey’s setlist at Stagecoach, April 25, 2025
“Husband of Mine”“Henry, Come On”“Stand By Your Man” (Tammy Wynette cover)“Cowboy Songs” (George Birge cover and lead vocal)“Ride”“Video Games”“Norman F-in Rockwell”“Arcadia”“Let the Light In” (with the Secret Sisters)“Quiet in the South”“Bluebird”“Summertime Sadness”“57.5”“Take Me Home, Country Roads” (John Denver cover)
