On the biggest night in their history, Manchester City aren’t at home. The team are 2000 miles away in Istanbul, fulfilling their treble-winning ambitions by securing the Champions League with a 1-0 win over Inter Milan. Tonight, the keys to their Etihad Stadium have instead been entrusted to The Weeknd to kick off the first UK date of his much-delayed ‘After Hours til Dawn Tour’, and, on one of the hottest days of the year so far, the Canadian star (real name Abel Tesfaye) is feeling the heat. “It’s fucking hot in Manchester tonight, Jesus,” he tells the 60,000-strong Etihad crowd at one point. “I’m trying to party all night!” You and Jack Grealish the same, Abel.
Tesfaye initially only intended to take his March 2020 album ‘After Hours’ on the road, but, as you’ll note from the date of that record’s release, things didn’t go exactly according to plan. That original arena tour was eventually scrapped as Tesfaye drew up plans for a global stadium takeover to accommodate his ever-growing popularity and the inevitable huge success of his latest LP, January 2022’s ‘Dawn FM’. After the North American leg finally took place last summer, this year it’s our turn: his three-month UK and European run will conclude, quite fittingly given tonight’s footballing context, with a cup final-like finale at Wembley Stadium in mid-August.
Closely marked by two burly security guards on either side of the pitch-length walkway that divides the standing section, Tesfaye races through his maiden UK stadium show with gusto, delivering a more-than-your-money’s-worth 33-song set. Wearing an MF Doom-style mask and dressed all in white, the 33-year-old blasts through such streaming smashes ‘Can’t Feel My Face’, his 2019 Gesaffelstein collaboration ‘Lost In The Fire’ and ‘The Hills’, the latter raising on-pitch temperatures even higher with infrequent pyrotechnic fire blasts whose heat you can feel in the stands.
The last time NME saw The Weeknd in action in March 2017 he brought out Drake, who ended up stealing the show from under Tesfaye’s nose by proceeding to play a mini-gig of his very own. No need for any special guests tonight, though: The Weeknd still performs ‘Crew Love’ – the track which heralded Drake’s arrival at The O2 six years ago – but he comfortably owns this much, much bigger performance space with his magnetic stage presence and peerless pop vocals. As if to hammer this point home, he then practically proclaims his own greatness with a thunderous rendition of his Daft Punk collaboration ‘Starboy’.
Backed by a tireless three-piece band (including regular Beyoncé and Kanye West producer Mike Dean, who delivers a mean sax solo during ‘Double Fantasy’), Tesfaye is free to dart between the gigantic metallic cityscape that fills the main stage, a massive, colour-shifting moon that dangles at the far end of the walkway and a rotating model of the Hajime Sorayama-designed robot that featured in the ‘Echoes of Silence’ video. Quite understandably, it makes for a high-energy spectacle for both performer and audience; the latter’s screams rarely let up as the likes of ‘House Of Balloons’, ‘Heartless’ and ‘Reminder’ boom around the Etihad before intensifying further as Tesfaye implores the titular sentiment of ‘Call Out My Name’ while on his knees.
The Weeknd’s knack for dominating the charts with hit-after-hit-after-hit means that there might’ve been some debate over which track should end his main set tonight, but ‘Blinding Lights’, off 2020’s ‘After Hours’, is the obvious choice: a stadium-uniting force that prompts the kind of mass singalong you’d probably be able to hear over at Old Trafford on the other side of Manchester. After such a high, tonight’s only disappointment is the subsequently relatively low-key encore, which only begins to pick up with his recent Swedish House Mafia collaboration ‘Moth To A Flame’.
It’s not enough to dampen the air of celebration which drifts across much of Manchester tonight – red half apart, of course – though. It’s official: The Weeknd now has stadium status.
The Weeknd played:
‘Take My Breath’
‘Sacrifice’
‘How Do I Make You Love Me?’
‘Can’t Feel My Face’
‘Popular’
‘Lost in the Fire’
‘Hurricane’
‘The Hills’
‘Kiss Land’
‘Often’
‘Crew Love’
‘Starboy’
‘House of Balloons’
‘Heartless’
‘Low Life’
‘Reminder’
‘Party Monster’
‘Faith’
‘After Hours’
‘Out of Time’
‘I Feel It Coming’
‘Die for You’
‘Is There Someone Else?’
‘I Was Never There’
‘Wicked Games’
‘Call Out My Name’
‘The Morning’
‘Save Your Tears’
‘Less Than Zero’
‘Blinding Lights’
‘Creepin’’
‘Double Fantasy’
‘Moth To A Flame’