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Show Review: The Weeknd’s After Hours til Dawn
from aria
by Annalee Mora
On Saturday, July 30, The Weeknd (aka Abel Tesfaye) finally arrived at FedEx Field outside Washington D.C. for a sold-out crowd. The two-hour performance came after numerous cancellations, the second one preceded with a promise that The Weeknd was committed to delivering something “bigger and better.”
The 32-year-old singer has been on six previous tours for more than six top-performing projects. The “After Hours til Dawn Tour” included some of The Weeknd’s greatest hits, with an emphasis on newest albums Dawn FM and After Hours.
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The tour comes shortly after (debatably) the height of the singer’s career – when “Blinding Lights” earned him both the title of Spotify’s second most streamed song of all time and the Super Bowl 2021 halftime show.
Stadium shows are rare and special experiences by the biggest names in music. A stadium tour is (one of) the ultimate achievements in an artist’s career.
The Weeknd embraced his stardom with the “After Hours til Dawn” tour. With production, transitions, dancers and a twohour long setlist, Tesfaye’s attention to detail shined through and created an experience that exceeded the characteristics of just any concert.
Conceptualized around listening to a retro-pop radio station in purgatory, Abel Tesfaye’s fifth album is the most thoughtful, melodic, and revealing project of his career.
We might have noticed that there was something universally, perversely relatable about the Weeknd’s music when songs from his 2015 album appeared on the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack and were nominated for a Kids’ Choice Award. To think that Abel Tesfaye—who rose to fame somewhat anonymously with sweaty mixtures about Alizé for breakfast and pills that burned his brain—would one day go on to play the Super Bowl would have felt bizarre to even his fans. But after a long album rollout for 2020’s After Hours wherein the singer had his face made up with bruises, blood, and bandages, there he was on the most-watched telecast of 2021—92 million people tuning in—looking like a quarter-billion bucks. A decade after his initial rise to fame, he had ascended to true Starboy status, glistening in a red sequin suit, performing hit after hit from his catalog, pop’s antihero taking his rightful place on the throne.
