Lana Del Rey at Glastonbury 2014 review – a kohl
Where and when: Pyramid stage, 4pm, Saturday.
Dress code: Etsy called and wants its flower crowns back. Lana is in her favourite (tie-dye) sundress - already a trend for next year's festival.
What happened: If there's one artist you'd expect it to really pelt it down for, it's Lana Del Rey. Her smoky doom-soul was made for electrical storms and hugging each other tightly as the heavens open into your dog-eared pint cup. But, no matter that the sun is sweat-through-your-tights hot, Del Rey and her band do their best to cover the Pyramid stage arena in a thick fug of gloom. It's less like a Saturday festival set, more a display of beautiful slowness.
'I hope you guys are having the times of your lives,' she monotones, before cooing her way into the best opening line of any festival, Cola (Pussy)'s 'My pussy tastes like cola', and the guitarist delivers a ripping solo that appears to be trying to conjure the thunder. It's a promising start, and Del Rey's voice is stunning, gently sliding between vulnerable falsetto and bombshell breathiness.
The rest, however, is actionless loveliness. She awkwardly slinks her way through kohl-smudged hits such as Born to Die, West Coast and National Anthem but the most exciting thing that happens is when she lights a cigarette for Blue Jeans. These are arguably some of the finest pop songs of the past five years, but Lana appears to sing as if though she's somewhere else, away from trenchfoot. Sonically it's stunning - burbling guitars, hazy atmospherics, perfect cooing, epic drums - but the singer's faraway look is as inescapable and haunting as the Glasto longdrops on Sunday.
Summertime sadness, indeed.
High point: Cinematic, indigo-hued track Ultraviolence.
Low point: The hollow stare.
In a tweet: The soundtrack to the festival film noir of your lives.
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