Lana Del Rey’s Fenway Park Show As Analogy for the Current State of the U.S.

On June 20th (incidentally, the eve of the chanteuse’s birthday), Lana Del Rey belatedly took the stage at Fenway Park for what would mark her first stadium performance. Of all the cities Del Rey could have chosen for such an auspicious event, Boston might seem like a rather random choice. But then one must remember that this Del Rey, the self-styled “Queen of Americana” (or “American Queen” as it is phrased on an American flag in her recent “Tough” video). Thus, Boston, with its history rooted in the founding of the United States as we know it, thanks to its association with being “the birthplace of the American Revolution, was a very pointed and perhaps even calculated decision on Del Rey’s part.

Alas, because celebrities and artists (sometimes one and the same, sometimes not) have a tendency to ignore reality, Del Rey didn’t seem to account for potential weather issues within the lens of climate change irascibility. Thus, the thunderstorm (accompanied by the dangerous element of lightning) that ensued at the same time she was to have gotten her ass out onstage (even though she rarely shows up on time anyway) came as a seeming surprise to her. Taking to Instagram to talk to her fans that came to the show, Del Rey explained, “I’m down here at the bottom of Fenway, everyone here they just cleared the stage. Um, so every time the lightning strikes, we have to wait twenty minutes, and, uh, it just keeps striking. What we were hoping for was to fill the room back up, um, by ten o’clock and at least do an hour-long show. Um, that’s what we’re hoping for, bare minimum. Worse case scenario, we reschedule for Saturday, so, I don’t know, I’m crossing my fingers.”

That, indeed, seems to be the only way that most Americans are functioning right now as opposed to taking much in the way of action to ensure their fate and the fates of future generations won’t be total shit. But maybe that’s because they’ve seen how little their attempts to take action have resulted in any meaningful change (for example, going out in the streets and/or universities to protest the genocide in Gaza). What’s more, with so many reliant on the lazy gesture of “social media activism” (another twenty-first century oxymoron), it seems that less and less physical grunt work is done to spark something like a grassroots movement.

And so, as Del Rey “crossed her fingers” as a means of “invoking” “actionable change” (to the weather, in this instance), fans were corralled into the concourse of Fenway Park, packed in like sardines as is usually the way with hoi polloi. And with the lowest ticket price tier being above one hundred dollars, it’s unlikely that fans were going to be sated with a mere one-hour performance. Yet, because so many fans had traveled from far and wide to see the show (with the anti-eco-conscious “concert tourism” trend taking off in the wake Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour), upon polling her followers on Instagram about rescheduling or not, around sixty-two percent said they would prefer that she just go ahead and play for one hour, rather than having to shell out more cash for lodging/travel the following weekend. And therein lies the very real danger of concert tourism: you never know what might go wrong in this increasingly unreliable world.

So it was that Del Rey finally took the stage around 10:30 p.m. Her abridged set list included “Without You,” “West Coast,” “Summertime Sadness” (during which Del Rey still somewhat cruelly had foil reflectors [that old school prop for tanning] wielded despite the weather being the antithesis of “sunny”), “Cherry,” “Pretty When You Cry,” “Blue Over You” with Mason Ramsey, “Ride,” “Born to Die,” “Chemtrails Over the Country Club,” “The Grants,” “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” “Until I Found You” with Stephen Sanchez, “Tough” with Quavo and “Video Games.” This making for a paltry fourteen songs, some more rushed through than others, and many of which would hardly be considered to everyone as “hits” (with “Young and Beautiful” also being foolishly excluded from the setlist in terms of appealing to such a massive audience). Not that that’s ever really been Del Rey’s “thing.” And lately, it hasn’t been America’s either, with the country steadily repulsing as many residents and non-resident alike with its political landscape.

Nonetheless, Del Rey showing up out of obligation in her sparkly red Dolce and Gabbana dress (of which she has a few different colors as we’ve seen over the last few months) with a triangle cutout above the stomach. The hue was a nod to both the Red Sox and America itself, so rooted in red with its flag colors—and the fact that a fuck-ton of blood has spilled in its name. Going through the motions of the show, Del Rey “did what she could” with the limited tools at her disposal—a curfew (though she could have paid the fee to defy it) and unpredictable weather. This, of course, ended up turning the whole thing into a shitshow still posing as a “glossy” affair. A phrase that increasingly sums up the United States in every way.

As for the fans who did want Del Rey to reschedule in order to enjoy the concert as it was meant to be seen, one person commented to Boston.com, “It was hell on earth. We were evacuated to the concourse, and there was no room to move. It was so hot in there I actually ended up at the emergency room and missed her finally going on. My daughter is devastated. They knew days before it there would be a heat advisory and dangerous temps they should have postponed.” Another added, “We got there at four and ended up leaving before she came out. It was frightening inside with people pushing and shoving. An altercation broke out near us, and no security came. You couldn’t text them either—not working. I got shoved into a railing and bruised.” Many others complained of limited reception in order to weigh in on what they wanted to happen: postponement or “the show must go on.”

And yet, like the impending presidential election, it was always going to be the latter choice, with better planning and potential alternatives simply not an option for this moneymaking juggernaut. While fans at the LDR concert were “lucky” to get out relatively unscathed despite not getting their money’s worth, the residents of the U.S. in general aren’t likely to be as lucky come the end of 2024. Which, to some, might very well be the true end of America. Or, as Del Rey once asked when Trump first took office, “Is it the end of America?” Foolishly (and in typical American fashion), she answered her own question with, “No, oh/It’s only the beginning/If we hold on to hope/We’ll have a happy ending.” Yeah, just like her concertgoers held on to hope only to get a shoddy ending. Though they still consoled themselves through the denied pain by being so kind as to deliver a rendition of “Happy Birthday” to Del Rey, who turned thirty-nine at the stroke of midnight.