The last time we were lucky enough to catch a superstar at the peak of his game, it was Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover), here in Toronto on his seemingly endless “farewell tour” ahead of retiring the Gambino name. Being in a packed stadium with thousands of Gambino diehards, singing along word-for-word as Glover gave it his all, will long remain one of our all-time favourite concertgoing experiences.
As it happens, Scarborough’s own The Weeknd (aka Abel Tesfaye) has been on a farewell tour of his own these last few years. Beginning in 2022, the After Hours til Dawn tour is, we have been promised, the last Tesfaye will perform under “The Weeknd” name, seemingly as part of an overall attempt to rebrand – or perhaps the better word is unbrand – the man who holds the record for most Spotify streams of all time. (“Blinding Lights”, of course.)
In town for four sold-out performances at the SkyDome – er, Rogers Centre – The Weeknd’s Monday night performance proved why the hype is real.
Combining the voice of an angel with a demonic aesthetic, The Weeknd is the pop powerhouse of the 21st century, a proud inheritor of the dancehall-friendly tradition of Daft Punk and Michael Jackson, both of whom are massive influences.
The Weeknd’s best numbers – the aforementioned “Blinding Lights”, the phenomenal “Sacrifice”, the Swedish House Mafia collaboration “Moth to a Flame” – are almost ruthless in their ability to worm under our skin, burrow in our ears, sending audiences into ecstatic rapture as they sing and dance along. Tesfaye, backed by an on-stage band and a troupe of mysteriously Greek-styled dancers, knows how to lean into this, even if his multiple Toronto shoutouts during the recent show began to approach overkill, some time after the tenth or eleventh substitution of the word “Toronto” into his lyrics.
That said, The Weeknd is a master of crowd work. Visibly moved by the warm embrace of his hometown fans, he spoke at length about his love for this city, coming to Blue Jays games as a kid, cutting his teeth on early XO-branded albums like Kiss Land (2013), from which he also performed the title track.
Also well-received was Tesfaye’s plea to re-rename the Rogers Centre back to SkyDome – not to mention the ‘Dome’s fantastic namedrop in “Timeless”, the lead single off his latest album Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025):
Oh, city on fire when I’m comin’ home
Fill up the sky (yeah), I fill up the Dome
They’ll play it one day (yeah), it’s a hell of a show
But it’s gonna hurt ’cause we did it first
The Weeknd’s showmanship was on fine display in other respects. From the pyrotechnic displays – fireworks and massive blasts of flame – to the choreographed dancework to the lighting design, everything was firing on all cylinders. Knowing The Weeknd’s reputation as a cinephile, we’d also like to think it was his idea to build the massive reproduction of the robot from Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film classic Metropolis, which towered over the proceedings.
The Weeknd is also the proud inheritor of another tradition, that of having one’s art singlehandedly elevated by the intervention of French electronica duo Daft Punk. Two of Tesfaye’s best songs – if not his best songs – are Daft Punk productions, “Starboy” and “I Feel It Coming”, marking the end of one era (Punk had already released their final album, Random Access Memories, by the time they produced these two megahits) and the dawn of another, which belongs entirely to The Weeknd. We may never get another Daft Punk show, but basking in the reflected glow of The Weeknd’s two collabs – aided, of course, by the entire 40,000-strong crowd, who seemed to know every lyric – was a fine substitution.
In terms of pure spectacle, there is little else that compares with what The Weeknd has pulled off with his latest set of Toronto shows. While it’s strange to think that “The Weeknd” will soon be no more, to be replaced by something else – god knows, maybe he’ll reinvent himself as “Tedros”, the character he played on The Idol – we’re excited to see (and hear) whatever comes next.
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The Weeknd’s After Hours til Dawn tour continues August 7 and 8, 2025 at Toronto’s Not-SkyDome, followed by concerts across the United States.