Concert Review: The Weeknd, After Hours til Dawn Tour
July 14, 2022
Shortly after announcing The After Hours Tour in February of 2020, the Weeknd had to cancel shows for the foreseeable future, due to the then burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic. After Hours, the Weeknd’s fourth studio album, felt like a shift for the artist: the songs were noticeably “bigger,” leaned on ‘80s sonic palette, filled with synthesizers and drum machines. In early 2021, still trying to get the songs out on the road, the Weeknd announced new tour dates, but those got postponed, too.
In the time since the early days of 2021, the Weeknd’s headlined the Super Bowl’s Halftime Show, and released Dawn FM in January of 2022, his follow-up to After Hours. After two years of false starts, the Weeknd announced, and embarked on, his After Hours til Dawn world tour, primarily centering music from the aforementioned albums.
On Thursday, July 14th, the Weeknd made his stop in Philadelphia, the first city in the US leg of the tour, with Mike Dean and KAYTRANADA serving as opening acts. Following the show, I wanted to share some thoughts on seeing the Weeknd, set design, “stadium music” and other things:
When I woke up on Thursday, I had no plans of going to the Weekend’s show. In fact, I’d forgot that he would even be in Philadelphia. But thanks to a series of unfortunate events, leading to a phone call from a good friend asking if I wanted to go to the show, I found myself at the Lincoln Financial Field staring at a red, inflated moon, watching the Weeknd.
This was my first show at a football stadium. So, my initial reaction, after getting to my seat, was noticing the sheer size of the stage and the set design. The lighting, stage layout, and pyrotechnics all created an absolute spectacle. To me, Es Devlin, the stage designer, and La Mar C Taylor, the creative director for the tour, deserve a lot of credit. The layout had the feeling of an art installation, in the best of ways.
In the intro I talked about how it took a lot for this tour to even happen. But a part of me thinks the tour being delayed, plus the Weeknd releasing another album, only helped him build momentum, especially with After Hours and Dawn FM occupying a similar sonic and stylistic space. They songs carried well throughout the stadium!
One of the things I kept thinking about during the show was “stadium music” — not as a genre or anything, but in terms of sonics. So many of the Weeknd’s song felt “big” — the synthesizers, distorted guitars, drum machines really filled the room. It’s funny, as a comparison, I remember seeing the Weeknd back in 2015 at The Roots Picnic, and saying to myself “this is stadium music!” I still don’t quite know what stadium music means, but the Weeknd’s got it.
I thought the music programming for the show was particularly well done. There was rarely any dead space, and the transitions between songs was tasteful. Going from Sacrifice to How Do I Make You Love Me was a personal favorite of mine.
I thought the mix was a little weird at times, and not very dynamic, just loud and very loud(er). But the Weeknd’s mic was indeed on, and he didn’t sound bad at all.
I thought the Weeknd was charismatic and carried great energy throughout the night.
With a show this big, there’s a certain level of “gimmick” involved, the lights, the fireworks, the stage design (it is Pop music after all). But, I think a lil gimmick can be cool. In fact, one of the things I appreciated about the show, and overall from the Weeknd, is his commitment to an era, a personal era (the broken nose look from After Hours stands out in this regard. Side-side bar: I actually saw at least one person with a band-aid on their nose with some fake blood splattered on it. At least I thought it was fake, yikes if it wasn’t). But anyway, it’s almost like a form of performance art, and it carries over to the live show. Bowie comes to mind in this regard, in how he would adopt these character-like figures for each album. You rarely see artists, artists as popular as the Weeknd especially, “get in character” and have a level of cohesion across album - visual art and music videos - tour.
I thought it was an excellent show. And it should be noted, too, that this was only the second show of the tour, so I’d imagine that the Weeknd, the tour crew, and the other performers will only get better as the tour goes.
Oh, one last thing. It was hella awkward when he did Crew Love, and, you know, there’s the line: “a room full of niggas”? And let me tell you, that “niggas” part was super loud. And I can assure you, there was not a room full of niggas at the concert.
