If the rabid reactions to the poisonous scenarios and personal traumas that punctuated the Weeknd’s blowout spectacle Sunday at a sold-out Soldier Field are an indication, our collective emotional state might be more fragile than thought. One of the most enigmatic artists to ever headline the lakefront stadium, the R&B singer — also known as Abel Tesfaye — turned detachment and dissociation into cause for celebration. The more indulgent, the better. Cue the flickering lasers, synchronized illuminated wristbands, space-bound spotlights, pyrotechnics and bombastic audio system.
Yet in a move that underscored the bleak romantic outlook and dark introspective nature of many of his narratives, Tesfaye seemingly declined to use a support band as he had on prior tours. With no other singer or instrumentalist in sight, it looked and sounded as if he performed along to prerecorded backing tracks that gave the music a mechanized quality. Long stretches of the 100-minute concert evoked the sensation of experiencing a carefully sequenced mixtape play out as a stylized theatrical event rather than on headphones or at a club. Tesfaye’s tendency to play snippets of songs and segue into another number exacerbated that perception.
Save for Tesfaye himself, the only interruption to the man-meets-machine aura came via the occasional presence of 22 shrouded figures who struck statuesque poses, engaged in dance choreography and marched along an extended runway that doubled as a primary focal point. Notably, most floor seats faced the runway — not the north end of the venue containing the main stage. The unconventional configuration was an apt metaphor for the self-absorbed decadence on display in the songs and singer’s dance moves. The “selfie generation” has found its pop star and, judging by the crowd’s shrieked responses and video-recording phones, it isn’t about to let the former underground singer go.
Just 11 years removed from playing his first show, the Canadian native initially attracted attention by releasing a series of free mixtapes and keeping a mysterious profile. A label deal soon followed, with Tesfaye’s formal debut album hitting No. 2 on the charts and beginning a still-going streak of critical and commercial success. By 2015, he secured a coveted mainstage closing slot at Lollapalooza — playing opposite Paul McCartney in a face-off that symbolized the youthful pop-leaning direction the festival was headed — and started to dominate major awards.
A constant presence on the charts and an in-demand collaborator, Tesfaye’s popularity seems to know no limit. In the past 18 months, he headlined the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show and broke a slew of records after his “Blinding Lights” single spent an entire year in the Top 10 and, ultimately, ousted Chubby Checker’s 1960 hit “The Twist” to rank as Billboard’s No. 1 Hot 100 Song of All Time. Tesfaye has achieved such fame singing about pernicious subjects, using explicit language and appearing at high-profile public events and in videos with his face (falsely) bandaged, bloodied or mutilated. He also regularly blurs the lines between his own persona and that of an alter-ego character.
Whether standing behind a microphone stand or prancing down the runway at Soldier Field, those distinctions were still nowhere to be found. Not that they mattered. Though certain musicians catch up to the times, Tesfaye appears to have anticipated the present well before becoming a phenomenon. His frequent desires to emotionally disconnect and chemically anesthetize have grown more commonplace among the public — and fellow artists — during the past decade.
Viewed through the lenses of recent events and current issues — the worldwide pandemic, opioid epidemic, global-warming disasters, steady erosion of trust in institutions — the unhealthy excesses and chronic lies Tesfaye detailed in fare such as “Wicked Games” (“Bring the drugs baby, I could bring my pain”) implied a new normalcy.
Similarly, the vocalist’s embrace of celebrity lifestyles and hedonistic sex (“Starboy,” “Often,” “Party Monster,” “Heartless,” brief covers of Drake’s “Crew Love” and Future’s “Low Life”) reflected the mindset of a self-medicating protagonist bent on concealing emptiness rather than owning up to desperation and addiction. Combinations of moody synthesizers, dense melodies, woozy synths and skittering beats hinted at the mental toll; Tesfaye’s uneasy quiver and sensual falsetto — too many times lost or hidden amid bass-heavy cacophony that made more than one song a sonic doppelgänger for another — shattered any illusions of consequence-free fantasy.
At times, the singer flirted with sincerity and cast defensiveness aside. A thematic sequence regarding relationships found Tesfaye apologizing for misdeeds (“Out of Time”), reassuring a scarred partner (“I Feel It Coming”), pledging promises (“Die for You”) and rooting out uncertainties (“Is There Someone Else?”). The progression positioned the vocalist as a balladeer and belter, someone caught up in the joys love can bring and eager to share it with everyone via the form of explosive choruses. Yet those light moments proved fleeting at a show where the first slate of songs identified Tesfaye’s subjects as nihilistic, obsessive and numb.
“When I’m [expletive] up, that’s the real me,” Tesfaye confessed on the dirge-like “The Hills” as the set’s grand-scale city-skyline backdrop — many of the buildings showing clear signs of deterioration and decay — smoked, caught fire and began collapsing. The apocalyptic scene, accented by blazing oranges and reds, implied the kind of inescapable fate at the root of many of Tesfaye’s anguished songs; one of our doing.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.