Lana Del Rey brought her own fog to Outside Lands

If Lana Del Rey were a season, she’d probably be a San Francisco summer.

The overwhelming fan favorite on Saturday night at Outside Lands, the “Summertime Sadness” singer began a set of glamorous pop ennui with a simple message: the words “God Bless You San Francisco” flashing in bright lights onstage, breaking through a heavy blanket of fog.

Surrounded by black-laced contemporary dancers slithering on the ground, Del Rey was the center of attention, radiant in a tufted white dress. Grainy footage, including some music video clips, played behind her, and pearly sheets blew from four arched window frames, looking like billowing portals.

Del Rey, whose music rarely rises above a knowing smirk in terms of positivity, was all smiles. Those who may have expected the mercurial star to embrace her shy side were surprised by a joyous Lana. She gushed gratitude to the crowd and friends in attendance, including her pastor (Judah Smith, who is featured on her latest album). She seemed overjoyed to share her music with the city, which last welcomed her to the festival in 2016. 

The theme of the night was a nostalgic Hollywood melodrama translated through a 2023 lens. Given the Foo Fighters counter-programming on the Lands End stage, the audience skewed heavily Gen Z. Based solely on the amount of T-shirts with her face on them, she was definitely the biggest draw of the day, especially for the younger people who grew up with her from the first time they saw the “Video Games” music video on YouTube.

Del Rey didn’t disappoint, delivering her complicated treatises on modern love with the help of a trio of backup singers so forceful that they deserved a set of their own. Adoring fans sang every self-deprecating line, from the new romanticism of “Young and Beautiful” to thornier lyrics from opener “A&W” (“This is the experience of being an American whore”). On “Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have – but I Have It,” she was literally passed through the air in the arms of several men, one of the choreography pieces that translated well on the large video monitors for the thousands watching from a distance.

In “Mariners Apartment Complex,” she brought her own fog, with industrial-strength hazers enveloping the stage in an Ocean Beach day’s worth of haze. A pristine cover of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” transported listeners back to 1968. The only awkward moment was when Del Rey led a meek chant of “San! Fran!”

The setlist spanned her whole career, with several songs from her 2019 opus “Norman F—king Rockwell,” including the title track, which Del Rey crooned while sprawled on top of a golden piano. But fans seemed most excited for vintage Lana. The late-set trio of “Ultraviolence,” “Summertime Sadness” and “Video Games” inspired the loudest cheers, before she closed with “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” in which a chorus of voices joined in a call-and-response of “don’t forget me.”

After a performance like that, San Francisco won’t forget Lana Del Rey anytime soon.