The anecdote offered a glimpse of a fiery wit behind the Gothic Prom Queen. She tells him he is “literally the Man” – the pale, male avatar of the corporate music industry. Moby recalls inviting the then unknown Del Rey back to his wiz-bang apartment to play some of her songs for him. There was that (now resolved) plagiarism spat with Radiohead over her ballad Get Free.Īnd she has a surprise cameo in Moby’s recently memoir Then It Fell Apart ( the one in which he claimed to have dated Natalie Portman - news to us all, especially Natalie Portman). Which is probably why those few moments in which she has stepped outside her Jackie Onassis-goes-to-Eurovision image have prompted such hysteria. She has never courted the celebrity-sphere and has only given a handful of interviews. Her frilly white outfit, for its part, looks as if it has escaped from a walk-in wardrobe at Graceland. At one point she conjures – presumably unwittingly – with the still uneasy ghost of Maria Bailey-gate by warbling on a swing (wisely both hands are empty). Huge potted plants line the stage two backing singers grin cheesily. But she embraces the artifice of pop as well. I couldn’t help but be moved by traditional Irish songsĭel Rey sings like a sad cheerleader and her music can brim with pathos. It’s her birthday, as it happens, and inevitably the crowd belts out its salutations. Later, she sets off on a meet-and-greet, posing for selfies with uber-fans up the front and popping on the heart-shaped sunglasses one devotee presents as gift. As she makes her entrance under a hazy summer sun, cooing the opening lines of Born To Die, it is as minor, but beloved, pop royalty. Just as striking is the fervour of her audience. She affirms the point at Malahide with a performance by turns intense, playful and quietly riotous.
However, Del Rey’s inscrutable persona has proved remarkably enduring. Initially it seemed to add up to a diverting yet ultimately insubstantial parlour trick. She induced goose-bumps but gave you the shivers too. Her references were cinematic rather than from rock ‘n roll, with David Lynch’s vision of small town America as a liminal otherworld looming especially large. Pop music had never seen anything quite like Lana Del Rey when she materialised in the Instagram-haze of Video Games in 2011.
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