It may be that the end of the world catches us all dancing in a ruined city, brought together by the hedonistic cult of the senses, light, fire and flesh in a ceremony presided over by a sleek robot with Abel Tesfaye as master of ceremonies. While the thermometers function as messiahs of the climate apocalypse, this Thursday more than 50,000 people, young people between the ages of 20 and 30, gathered at the Estadi Olímpic in Barcelona to experience The Weeknd's show, where he presented his last two works, seasoned with the songs that have taken him to all the clubs between rhythm and darkness.
Another catastrophe, the pandemic, cut short the Canadian artist's plans to present the album After hours, released in February 2020. The tour was postponed until 2022, a period in which Tesfaye published Dawn FM with his usual eighties sound accessible to all audiences. Both works make up the After hours til dawn tour, some thirty songs that review his entire career, compressed to make them fit in the two hours of concert with the varnish conferred by the high-pitched voice of the protagonist, compared by its tone and turns with that of Michael Jackson.
There are no big screens this time on stage, a shiny metal metropolis made up of destroyed buildings including the Chrysler skyscraper in New York or London's St. Paul's Cathedral. The group drew a dystopia on which the three musicians (drums, keyboard and guitar) settled and which gave way to a long catwalk that practically reached the other end of the stadium. A space topped by an enormous moon and, between one end and the other, the powerful presence of an immense metallic robot with feminine forms with its arms thrown back, as if it were about to jump into the heavens. It was on this space that Tesfaye moved during most of the concert, addressing the audience from one side and the other while dozens of lights and lasers that touched the clouds conferred vertical volumes of color, from red to blue, from green to yellow, turning the Olímpic into an immense ballroom that gained strength as night fell.
About thirty vestals appeared on the catwalk at 9:30 p.m. to start the ritual. Dressed completely in white, their faces covered, they began a dance under the big moon while on the opposite side The Weeknd made his appearance over the ruined city also dressed in white, his face covered by a metal mask that he did not take off until halfway through the concert. The cheers of the public – all the stands followed the concert on their feet – mixed with the rhythm of Take my breath and offered their most disco vein in an initial crescendo that peaked with Can't feel my face, which reminded why this 33-year-old, the son of Ethiopian emigrants, has become the guest at all parties. “Barcelona, I missed you so much”, he said.
Tefaye cheered on the fans as he threaded together slow and dark tracks, adding rapper beats like Kayne West's version of Hurricane. Or using funk to raise the public, who expressed their joy with each hit, whether it was The Hills (which literally set a hellish red stage on fire) Starboy, I feel it coming or Call out my name, performed amid smoke, fire and the light of the luminous bracelets, which this Thursday night lit up in songs like Lost in the fire or Out of time, all chanted by a dedicated audience while the hooded dancers danced like Greek priestesses with their clothes reflecting the colors that flooded the stadium.
Colors that dyed the entire stage like a great canvas while the music covered the entire career of The Weeknd, with the version of Crew love, Drake, House of balloons or the dark and carnal Kiss land, a reminder of his addiction times, which began at the age of 11 with marijuana. rap and r
