And where does she perform it? In a cemetery. Quite a fitting location for the first live performance of “Shades of Cool.”
The Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a historic cemetery in Los Angeles. It was the first cemetery built in Hollywood, and dates back to 1899. It’s appeared several times in pop culture. In true Hollywood fashion, the cemetery has been recently refurbished, and now shows documentaries about the deceased, and has hosted film screenings since 2002. The Flaming Lips played at the cemetery in 2002 as well.
In short, as prettymuchamazing.com puts it, its “the Lana Del Rey-iest possible venue” and it’s where the singer most recently performed. Last week, she performed “Shades of Cool” for the first time live. A fan managed to catch it on video, which you can check out below.
The video starts off in a haze of purple lights, smoke, and palm trees. Lana del Rey’s voice is haunting and melancholic, as she moves slowly across a stage filled with trees and candelabras. Del Rey is old-school beautiful as always, and while the video may make you a bit motion sick at times, the music sounds great.
The song is off of Lana del Rey’s most recent album, Ultraviolence. You can check out the video for Ultraviolence here.