Lana Del Rey Singapore Grand Prix finale: a 75-minute Padang show, and Janet Jackson’s tribute to Michael
The Lana Del Rey Singapore Grand Prix finale on Sunday 11 October was her first full concert in the city: a 75-minute show on the Padang stage that started after Max Verstappen’s win and mixed her early hits with new country songs. Earlier that evening, Janet Jackson played her first Singapore show in 15 years and closed with a tribute to her late brothers Michael and Tito and their father, Joe. Here is what happened on both stages.
By Editorial Team
What we know
- The headline slot (REPORTED). The Straits Times reports that Lana Del Rey closed the race weekend at the Padang stage, starting at 10.45pm after Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the race, and played for 75 minutes.
- Her first full show in Singapore (REPORTED). The paper describes it as her inaugural full concert in the city.
- The fan moment (REPORTED). Mid-set, she spotted an audience member in distress and told crew to help, according to The Straits Times.
- Janet Jackson’s return (REPORTED). Janet Jackson, 60, took the Wharf Stage at 6.20pm. It was her first Singapore concert since a 2011 show at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
- The tribute (REPORTED). For her encore, she sang “Together Again” without her dancers while the screens showed childhood photos of Michael and Tito Jackson and their father, Joe Jackson.
How the Lana Del Rey Singapore set unfolded
On paper, the booking looked odd. Lana Del Rey’s slow, orchestral pop sits a long way from the noise of a Formula 1 weekend, a point The Straits Times made itself. The production leaned into that contrast rather than fighting it.
The stage was built around a Southern-style country house hung with fairy lights, in front of a huge LED screen that moved between starry skies, clouds and video collages. Props included newspapers carrying the headline “Lana Del Rey, West Coast (to) Singapore”. When the show began, a cloth lifted to reveal her and her dancers on the roof of the house.
She began in a white dress and changed into a red gown midway through. The set covered more than a decade of songs, including “Blue Jeans”, “Born To Die” and “Young And Beautiful”, along with material from Norman F***ing Rockwell! and Chemtrails Over The Country Club. She also played recent country-leaning singles, including “Henry, Come On” and the first live performance of her 2026 single “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter”, the paper reports.
The most shared moments were about fans rather than music. As well as stopping to get help for a fan in distress, she stepped down from the stage during “Blue Jeans” to meet people at the front, accepted gifts and wore a pair of red heart-shaped sunglasses from the crowd for “Born To Die”.
Janet Jackson’s first Singapore show in 15 years
Janet Jackson’s set ran for about an hour and squeezed four decades of hits into fast medleys, often trimming songs to their verses and choruses. She performed with five male dancers, in a dark blue denim outfit with glittery black sleeves.
The Straits Times lists songs from across her career: “Rock With U” and “Feedback” from 2008, “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” from 1997, and “Miss You Much”, “Control”, “Nasty”, “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “When I Think of You” from the 1980s. The review noted that her vocals were sometimes buried under the beats on uptempo songs, but praised the Control-era numbers.
Some of the biggest cheers came for “Scream”, her 1995 duet with Michael Jackson, as the screen played clips from its black-and-white video. After “Rhythm Nation”, many fans began to leave, then ran back when she returned alone for “Together Again”.
Why the tribute meant so much
“Together Again”, from 1997’s The Velvet Rope, has long been read as a song about loss. Using it for a family tribute gave the encore extra weight. Michael Jackson died in 2009, Joe Jackson in 2018 and Tito Jackson in September 2024 (FACT).
The Straits Times did not report Janet Jackson saying anything about the tribute on stage, so we have not added words to it. The photos on the screen made the point.
Why F1 keeps booking pop stars
Singapore’s night race has staged concerts alongside the racing since its early years. The Padang concert stage was already part of the weekend in 2009, as the photo above shows. The idea is simple: give ticket holders a reason to stay after the chequered flag, and attract people who are not committed motorsport fans.
Sport and music are now booked together more often. This weekend alone, Ayra Starr played halftime at the NFL’s London game, as set out in our guide to the Ayra Starr NFL halftime show, and Burna Boy is due at the NFL Paris game later this month, as we reported in our story on Burna Boy’s London and Paris dates. The biggest such booking of all is chosen differently, as our explainer on how the Super Bowl halftime performer is chosen shows.
What we do not know
We have not seen an official attendance figure for either concert, or full, confirmed setlists. We do not know the identity or condition of the fan Lana Del Rey stopped to help, and we will not speculate.
What happens next
- We will add confirmed setlists or attendance figures if the organisers or the artists publish them.
- The Singapore Grand Prix concert line-up for 2027 has not been announced.
- Lana Del Rey’s country-leaning singles, including “White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter”, suggest more new music is on the way, though no album date has been confirmed.
More from around the world: International Entertainment.
Read more
- Mike Love health: Beach Boys frontman returns to the stage seated, as John Stamos says ‘we have tonight’
- Ayra Starr NFL halftime show: the setlist, what she said and the ‘first African’ milestone explained
Photo credits: Featured image: Lana Del Rey at Primavera Sound, Barcelona, 2024. Photo: Raph_PH, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). Source. In-article image: The Padang concert stage at the Singapore Grand Prix, 2009. Photo: Chinnian, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Source.
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