Stevie G: Triumphant return to Ireland by the Weeknd
The Weeknd on the big screen performing at Croke Park last weekend.
I could never have predicted this in the early 2010s, when the Weeknd emerged with a trio of underground mixtapes that later became the Trilogy. By the time Can’t Feel My Face emerged in 2015, the Weeknd was already one of the most established artists of the day, and his features, remixes and own material were big staples of my DJ sets and radio shows. Can’t Feel my Face propelled him into a bigger league but the previously released Earned It had also opened many more doors for him.
His career since then has continued to establish Abel Tesfaye as one of the most important music artists of his generation, and in writing my sum of of the 2010s back in 2020, I had included him alongside artists such as Frank Ocean, Beyoncé, Drake and Tyler the Creator as being that decade’s best. Blinding Lights had just come out and became one of the most successful songs of all time, and one of the big anthems of that weird pandemic era when the online music world exploded worldwide.
How do you follow that? Well to be fair, this is why the Weeknd remains loved by both underground music fans and the mainstream. He has continued to deliver us pop hits, but he has never watered down his sound, and his albums are full of much deeper and darker music too. His set in Croke Park was a mix of both, but it’s to his great credit that he flanked the huge radio and pop anthems with the often leftfield downtempo deep cut jams that helped establish him as a unique artist in the first place. I attended Saturday, and it was an incredible show.
This is an artist who held his own during the Super Bowl halftime show, but Croke Park is a fairly unforgiving place, and a stadium of this size doesn’t necessarily suit an artist who built most of his career on dark introspection. During a solid two hour show with no breaks and no filler, the Weeknd silenced any doubters, and he sent everybody home absolutely buzzing.
A quickfire Playboi Carti show got the place warmed up nicely, but the production and visuals ramped up a huge level by the time the Weeknd arrived on stage, and his strong visual aesthetics played an important role all evening. The descending end of summer darkness continued with a masked Weeknd performing Baptised in Fear, Open Hearts, Wake Me Up and After Hours, before launching into Starboy.
A surprisingly chatty and relaxed Abel was visibly in the mood, and even though I was standing a good bit back, the sound quality of the vocals from the mic were first class. In a post AI world it was refreshing to see a huge international artist singing everything live, and he immediately had everybody on his side.
What followed was a masterclass from the Weeknd. He has hits for days, and he backed them with the lesser known tracks that are often just as good.
Playboi Carti’s initial warm up was fine, but his emergence for Timeless and Rather Lie were genuine high points in the middle of a set that already brought us Often, Sacrifice, Take your Breath and an explosive Can’t Feel My Face. Fireworks and impressive visuals added to the vibe but, for me, it was all about the Weeknd, who displayed a confidence and charisma that wasn’t as evident the last time I saw him live.
Creepin, I Feel It Coming, Save Your Tears and Call Out Your Name all followed, before an amazing Less Than Zero made way for the ubiquitous Blinding Lights. He even managed to please his day one fans with an incredible rendition of House of Balloons, giving me pause to reflect on how far this blog era artist has come since those early mixtapes.
The Weeknd is not an all singing, dancing Michael Jackson or even Beyoncé, but his show was one of the most polished stadium gigs I’ve seen, and I await the next stage of his amazing career with great anticipation!
