Cruel World

I went to Lana del Rey's show last Thursday. I didn't get tickets for it myself since it was a school night, but my sister got me some tickets for Christmas.

Grimes was on stage for the first part of the show. I haven't listened to her album that much, but I only recognized one of the songs (an article about the show I read later only talked about two songs from her album). Apparently she is releasing another album soon, so she must be testing her new songs. Her performance wasn't really appropriate for the Bell Center, though. It was too concentrated on one part of the stage. There were also weird dancers all around her. Since Grimes is from Montreal, it made me think that maybe she only called up some of her friends so that they could dance around her on stage.

As for Lana del Rey's performance, well, it wasn't exactly the best show I have ever seen. She didn't talk that much, but she smiled a lot. She went down into the public and brought back some gifts on stage, among which there was a Canadian flag. She didn't do any encores, either, and the show was finished after an hour and a half. She seems to rely a bit too much on her pre-recorded voice, or maybe that's just my imagination. At one point, she held the microphone towards the public but I could still hear her singing. Perhaps I was mistaken and it was the public singing, because everybody seemed to know all the lyrics. In general, her songs varied just enough from the album versions so that there could be doubt whether she was lipsynching or not. The videos playing behind her were a bit too self-indulgent, with lots of footage of herself and of American flags.

I had forgotten about the possibility that she might do her Leonard Cohen cover in Montreal. I really hope she will record it someday, as "Chelsea Hotel #2" is such a great song. Besides songs from her albums (mostly singles from Born to Die and Ultraviolence), she also played a song called "Us Against the World" which I liked a lot, "Serial Killer" which is a little bit more of a minor song, and she covered a Peggy Lee song in a pretty jazzy way.

Perhaps I would see her again in Quebec City with some friends, but I don't think I will be going back to Montreal to see her.