On July 30, The Weeknd made a stop in the District for the 2022 After Hours Til Dawn tour at FedEx Field. The sold-out show included producer Mike Dean and DJ Kaytranada as openers, both cohesively adding their styles and accomplishments to the night.
Mike Dean, a brilliant behind-the-scenes figure in hip hop, is known for recording with Beyoncé, Drake, Jay-Z and The Weeknd. This tour collaboration gives a nod to the significant influence audio engineers have on the music industry, with much of their work going unrecognized by listeners. While the sun was still out, Dean was stationed in the DJ booth mixing a supernatural instrumental set that primed the audience for The Weeknd’s debut of a new synth-heavy live sound.
As the crowd continued to trickle in, Kaytranada took the stage with an enticing presentation of his electronic songs that got people moving and shaking. As an opener, Kaytranada won over a crowd that wasn’t necessarily familiar with his music or his genre, as if The Weeknd sent everyone clicking through Spotify’s “Fans also like” in real life.
Tracks produced and remixed with fellow female powerhouses like Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Kali Uchis, are often a part of his setlists. This year, Kaytranda finally collaborated with The Weeknd, remixing “Out of Time” in a bundle along with an instrumental version.
Around 9 p.m. whispers of The Weeknd traveled through the 82,000-person stadium. Steady clouds of smoke revealed a set he would later emerge from at the base of the catwalk, and a loop of chilling synths similar to the supporting audio of Uncut Gems, an A24 film The Weeknd played himself in, droned in and out.
Finally, in a Phantom of The Opera-esque mask that came off during the second song, The Weeknd emerged with “Alone Again.” From there, he switched back and forth playing songs off of albums “Dawn FM” and “After Hours,” the two most recent albums released over just a two-year span. Older fan favorites from “Beauty Behind The Madness” and “Trilogy” were snuck in, wholly embraced by the ever-loyal crowd.
Recently, I’ve found that as female artists’ stadium shows become more elaborate, where the aesthetic of the tour and artist has to be reinvented each time around, male artists are able to ride off their stardom and rarely need to turn over themes to sell tickets. The Weeknd, easily an antithesis of this theory, did not fail to create a new experience for fans. Complete with an army of Dune-like backup dancers who traveled up and down the catwalk together in a unit and his natural thrilling stage presence, The Weeknd sells a dramatic sound with his mesmerizing talent as a performer.
Typically, I like the unknown variable of a setlist that changes from night to night, but with the production value, choreography, and lighting that went into the two-hour set, I had no complaints with this beast of a show.
