The UK leg of The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn tour coincided with both good and bad timing. Manchester hosted the Canadian star’s first British gigs since 2017, and he chose to perform at the city’s Etihad Stadium on the same night that Manchester City played in the Champions League final in Turkey. The Weeknd’s impressive stage set was a fantasy city, complete with stainless steel buildings and a model of Toronto’s landmark CN Tower. The show’s concept takes inspiration from his last two albums, After Hours and Dawn FM, which exemplify the captivating imagery and themes exemplified in the singer’s music. As The Weeknd, real name Abel Tesfaye, he portrays a nocturnal pleasure-seeker who’s constantly driven by insatiable desires for sex and drugs, making him pop’s most enigmatic megastar.
This tour timing, however, overlapped with the debut of the new HBO television series, The Idol, co-created by Tesfaye. The show received hostile reviews, prompting concerns about its influence on the artist’s persona. Despite these worries, Tesfaye’s stadium gig was an unprecedented, awe-inspiring spectacle. The stage set featured a colossal metallic statue of a female robot rotating on a runway stretching the length of the pitch. The robot was designed by Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama, who manufactured an exoskeleton replica embodying the singer’s music persona. The stage set, combined with pyrotechnics and precision lighting, was the most visually stunning of its kind.
Tesfaye extended his performance all over the stadium. He jettisoned his usual sartorial nocturne to perform in white and exhibited a nonchalant chivalry towards the robot statue, which he serenaded with an uncanny devotion before addressing his adoring fans. The performance featured 28 dancers, all dressed in flowing white outfits and performing ritualistic movements, similar to occult brides. The hip-hop beats were punctuated by grandiose 80s synth pop, typically reserved for the hits, with songs truncated and skillfully mixed into one another.
Inverse to the darkly moody scenery, Tesfaye’s singing voice exuded an enthralling power, pitched distinctly between innocence and needle-like urgency- giving his performance dramatic and dazzling depth. Tesfaye’s control over his role was at its peak, captivating and ardent, with his audience hanging on his every word. Overall, The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn tour was a 5-star masterpiece, and it added further credibility to his title of pop’s most enigmatic megastar.
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