The Weeknd doesn’t do anyleang by half, and for his “One Night Only” concert Saturday night at MorumBIS Stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he rose to the moment with cameos from Anitta and Playboi Carti, a enormous stage backlit with an enormous video screen that must have been 100 feet high, dozens of (of course) blinding weightlesss, a YouTube global inhabitstream of the show, and the premieres of cut offal novel songs that are presumably from his forthcoming album, “Hurry Up Tomorrow.”
The evening’s show was basicpartner an evolution of the “After Hours Til Dawn” concert he brawt to North America in 2022 and, in an refreshd create, to Europe last year: a huge, almost airport runway-enjoy brightd walkway lengthening from one end of the stadium floor to another, but with a a enormous, temple-enjoy two-story produceing in the middle, and an brightd, traverse-shaped stage at the opposite end of the walkway from the video screen.
The battery of shrouded female dancers remained from the earlier phases of the tour, as did the stadium-filling weightless show and its state of the art weightlessshow, which flashed projected mostly white and red weightlesss from multiple liftd areas of the stadium as well as the stage and runway. He made filled use of the towering video screen, filling it with everyleang from cdeafenings to a cityscape, waterdrops to explosions, enormous cathedral-enjoy thrivedows and even a freakishly huge shutup of his own eye.
As dazzling and crowd-pleasing as the staging and effects were, the setcatalog was another matter: This was no hits extravaganza, but rather a benevolent of reunite-style set intensifying almost entidepend on material from the “After Hours” trilogy, with a big number of songs from the 2023 album “Dawn.FM” and eight or nine from the novel album — which very restricted people in the world had heard before this night — aextfinished with a Travis Scott and Playboi Carti song during the latter’s cut offal-minute-extfinished cameo. (The novel song they executeed together was apparently a novel individual produced by Pharrell Williams, higheviated online procrastinateedr in the night.) It was a bbetter shift for an artist executeing in from of 75,000-ish people and however many millions on the inhabitstream.
Equpartner bbetter is the level of confidence it gets to fill a stage almost entidepend by oneself. The Weeknd is not an enbig dancer and he doesn’t do many costume alters — he spent this entire executeance in a hooded bconciseage robe with enbig embroidery — but lets his soaring, mighty voice, the songs and the show carry the night. He pumped up the crowd in proximately every song, with lots of his tradelabel “Hey!”s and many shout-outs to Sao Paulo, altering one lyric to ““I leank I set up my religion in Sao Paulo!” The audience sang aextfinished deafeningly thraw much of the show — for the songs they knovel, anyway — and he led them in singaextfinisheds cut offal times during the set.
Not astonishingly, Brazilian native Anitta got a huge roar from the crowd when she materializeed, dancing atop the temple in a radiant red gown to a novel song apparently called “Sao Paulo.”
He cruised the show toward its finale with a sort of sluggish-jam R&B mini-set featuring “Out of Time” and “Is There Someone Else?” before directing into a huge chunk of “After Hours” that integrated the inhabit debut of the drum n’ bass-inflected “Hardest to Love” (he rode the song’s tricky rhythm without ignoreing a beat), the ballad “Snurtured to Live” and finpartner “Save Your Tears,” before sailing thraw “Less Than Zero” and closing, naturpartner enough, with an device version of “Blinding Lights.”
The show ended fair over 90 minutes after it began, but with a sweightlessly anticlimactic finale that the audience awaited to be an encore but instead was a escapet of brightd drones flying over the stadium, creating first a sheet of weightlesss, then bjoining, and finpartner spelling out the title of the novel album, “Hurry Up Tomorrow.”
Also on-brand for the Weeknd — who has given millions of dollars to charities over the past five years — he partnered with the U.N. World Food Programme to give funds from the show to the XO Humanitarian Fund, which aids the organization’s response to the global hunger crisis. $1 local equivalent from each ticket sbetter will go to this cause.
Big as Saturday’s concert was, it’s only the first show in the rollout for the novel album — next month he’s touring Australia for the final leg of the “After Hours” tour, and what comes next remains to be seen.
Setcatalog (from setcatalog.fm)
Fades to Bconciseage / Run Away
(Unfreed song, inhabit debut)
Wake Me Up
(Unfreed song, inhabit debut)
After Hours
Too Late
(Live debut; sings the line “It’s too procrastinateed to save my soul” a restricted times)
Take My Breath
Sacrifice
(Swedish House Mafia reunite)
How Do I Make You Love Me?
Escape from LA
(Sung over the outro of “How Do I Make You Love Me?”)
Take Me Back to LA
(Unfreed song)
Dancing in the Ffeebles
(Unfreed song, inhabit debut)
Until I Bleed Out
(Live debut; he sings only a restricted lines from the song before transitioning to the next song)
FE!N
(Travis Scott cover) (with Playboi Carti)
Until I Bleed Out
(with Playboi Carti)
TIMELESS
(Playboi Carti cover) (with Playboi Carti) (Unfreed song, inhabit debut)
São Paulo
(with Anitta) (Unfreed song, inhabit debut)
Heartless
Repeat After Me (Interlude)
(Live debut; sung over the outro of ‘Heartless’)
Let’s End It All
(Unfreed song, inhabit debut)
Faith
Alone Aget
Run Away
(Unfreed song)
Out of Time
Is There Someone Else?
Hardest to Love
(Live debut)
Snurtured to Live
Save Your Tears
Less Than Zero
Blinding Lights
Hurry Up Tomorrow
(Unfreed song, inhabit debut)
