The Weeknd live — audacious, mysterious stadium spectacle

The first night of the R&B megastar’s Australian tour bridged his transgressive taste with his mainstream appeal in a way that felt both natural and deeply strange.

The Weeknd at Marvel Stadium on Saturday. Picture: Rick Clifford

Some 13 years ago, The Weeknd was an enigma – a shadowy 20-something from Toronto whose silky, narcotic R&B sampled 1980s goth icons such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and Cocteau Twins, sending the music blogosphere into a state of delirium.

Back then, you’d have been lucky to catch a glimpse of him: his spotlight-shunning persona was part of the draw.

Now The Weeknd – aka Abel Tesfaye – is the biggest name in music. He’s the most-streamed artist on Spotify, surpassing even Taylor Swift, and last year he created and starred in the divisive HBO series The Idol, which was either the best or worst show of the year, depending on one’s taste for chaos.

On Saturday, he brought his ­titanic persona to Australia for the first of four stadium shows, announced just five weeks ago, drawing a crowd of 50,000.

You know the hits. How could you not? The icy new-wave anthem Blinding Lights, the most-streamed song in Spotify’s history, was inescapable in 2020.

Before that, there was the glossy Can’t Feel My Face, the Daft Punk collaboration Starboy, and his racy contribution to the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, Earned It.

These are the pop staples of the decade, yet what makes The Weeknd more than a hit machine is his ambition and creative excess, rivalling Kanye West in his prime (and before his anti-Semitic spiral). Take, for example, his 2022 record Dawn FM, a concept album that plunged listeners into purgatory, styled as a creepy adult contemporary radio station narrated by Jim Carrey, with cameos from Quincy Jones and Josh Safdie, the director of Uncut Gems, in which The Weeknd made his acting debut.

The Weeknd at Marvel Stadium. Picture: Rick Clifford

His live show bridges these transgressive elements with his mainstream appeal in a way that feels both natural and deeply strange. At Marvel Stadium, Eng­lish artist Es Devlin, who has designed stages for everyone from U2 to Beyoncé, created an unsettling vision of hell. The Weeknd emerged atop a religious temple that looked plucked straight from the set of Don’t Look Now, dressed in a black robe with gold trim, a vicar gone rogue. His dancers, clad in twisted uniforms reminiscent of the demented twin surgeons from David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, flanked him in eerie synchronicity.

The set was a relentless barrage of hits, deep cuts, playing out like a continuous mix that blurred one track into the next. In just under two hours, The Weeknd tore through 32 songs, including a cover of Twin Peaks’ director David Lynch’s In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song), making the entire affair feel like a breathless glory lap through his career.

On record, his voice is smooth and rich as a Werther’s Original. Live, it surprises with astonishing power, filling the stadium effortlessly. The sound mix was perfect.

It was audacious and spectacular, a maximalist show that captured both his pop ambition and villainous underbelly that makes him a singular force in today’s pop landscape.

During Less Than Zero – a hedonistic bacchanalia named after Bret Easton Ellis’s debut novel – a fan rushed the stage, momentarily breaking the spell with an awkward hug-tackle combo. The Weeknd didn’t flinch. As security intervened, he gave a half-amused shrug, not missing a beat as the crowd roared.

Despite his career-long exploration of moral decay – songs about drug binges, nihilism and soulless debauchery – on stage, Tesfaye is disarmingly charming. He almost comes across as shy.

Between songs, he hyped up the crowd like an enthusiastic gospel preacher, declaring, “I think I found my religion in Australia today.”

Front row footage of the fan that jumped on stage at The Weeknd’s show in Melbourne Night 1 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/eJyvUAgF1y

— 𝙼𝙴𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙾 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙸 𝚇𝙾💀 (@MementoMoriXO) October 5, 2024

The Weekend will play Accor Stadium in Sydney on October 22 & 23. Geordie Gray flew to Melbourne as a guest of Live Nation