The Weeknd Review: Maximalist Wembley Spectacle from Pop Heavyweight

Wembley Stadium, London

The pop superstar douses 5 nights at Wembley Stadium; inciting a colossal string of pop, rap and R&B hits alongside an enticing maximalist production.

The Weeknd’s renowned tour de force descended on Wembley Stadium for five nights as part of the After Hours Til Dawn Tour, ensuring the spectacle was suitably colossal: a dilapidated futuristic city provided the backdrop, surrounded by an entourage of backing dancers and a 30-foot female C-3PO-like figure which incessantly rotated and fired lasers sporadically across the stage.

It takes a while for this show to find its momentum, with the first half occasionally feeling weighed down by the sheer scale of the production and The Weeknd’s naturally high-pitched vocal range. Midway through, however, a surprise appearance from Playboi Carti injects some welcome chaos, joining The Weeknd for 'Timeless' and 'Rather Lie' and proving an impressive cameo amid an already overloaded production. As the evening progresses, the spectacle increasingly gives way to the catalogue itself, with the familiar hits providing the emotional and communal peaks, highlighting many-a-pop hit soundtracking the last decade of our lives.

Across a sprawling trawl through his catalogue, the show eventually becomes everything a Wembley spectacular should be: excessive, polished and utterly enormous. The evening goes out with a literal bang as a barrage of pyro accompanies 'Blinding Lights', 'House of Balloons' and 'Moth to a Flame', bringing a suitably frenzied conclusion to a night built on maximalist production and a decade-plus of The Weeknd’s increasingly expansive pop universe.

7.5/10

Photo is courtesy of Pedro Becerra whose work can be found here.