The Weeknd saves best for last in final Toronto concert: 'It's been a beautiful 15 years'

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The Weeknd grew up watching the Toronto Blue Jays play at the SkyDome. So it was only fitting that he would refer to Rogers Centre by its old name multiple times as he closed out the last of four sold-out shows in his hometown Friday night.

The Scarborough-born R&B superstar, born Abel Tesfaye, played his last-ever show in Toronto before he retires his Weeknd moniker with a two-plus hour concert that covered a 15-year hit streak that began in earnest after a trio of mixtapes — House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence — helped catapult him to music stardom in 2011.

Unlike other stops on his now three-year-oldAfter Hours Til Dawn tour, Tesfaye was back in the city that shaped his signature sound, and he never stopped acknowledging how important Toronto was in his musical evolution. His face beaming with pride, Tesfaye repeatedly paid tribute to his hometown, marvelling at the fact that he had sold-out the stadium he visited as a boy for a record-setting sixth time (the most for any Canadian musician).

“If it wasn’t for Toronto, I wouldn’t be a star,” he said. “It’s been a beautiful 15 years.”

Tesfaye also warned the residents living in the condo towers that surround Rogers Centre, sorry SkyDome, that they too were in for a long night. “They’re not sleeping tonight,” he quipped early on.

“I want them to hear us all the way from Scarborough; all the way from Mississauga. I want them to hear the SkyDome tonight,” he told the nearly 50,000 screaming fans inside the venue.

With the roof open, the brightly lit CN Tower added to the visual brilliance of his set, which exuded an Eyes Wide Shut-meets-Metropolis vibe. Crimson-robed masked dancers cavorted across an expansive stage that featured imagery of a city landscape marred by ruined skyscrapers, a gold-ringed cross-shaped catwalk and a towering robot sculpture designed by Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama.

“Look at how beautiful the CN Tower looks,” remarked Tesfaye, who was presented with a key to the city last month.

After starting the show with The Abyss, a brooding collaboration he sings with Lana Del Rey on his latest album Hurry Up Tomorrow, Tesfaye, who initially took to the stage in a silver mask that was adorned with a pair of glowing eyes, reminded people in the audience that he’s unmatched when he comes to penning infectious hits.

He’s the top musical artist to have the most songs to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify, and the building literally shook when he played hits like Blinding Lights, Save Your Tears and Take My Breath.

Then there was his synth-pop Daft Punk collabs — Starboy (which the crowd gleefully helped provide backing vocals for as they belted out the line, “I’m a motherf—in’ starboy”) and I Feel It Coming — that he sprinkled alongside his silky falsettos on songs like Call Out My Name, House of Balloons and Wicked Games.

During the Dawn FM track Out of Time, Tesfaye journeyed from the B-stage into the crowd where he invited an overzealous fan to try and help him sing along. How did she do? It didn’t matter he was all smiles as he gave her a hug. Elsewhere, on songs like After Hours, he worked the audience like a conductor letting them take over the singing completely. 

He changed the lyrics to some of his other tracks as an excuse to namedrop Toronto. “Every time I try to leave you Toronto/you won’t let me leave,” he sang on Given Up on Me.

Fireworks and pyrotechnics added to the excessive pomp as they bathed the stadium in bursts of flame during the night’s bouncy closing number Moth to a Flame. All throughout, Tesfaye was a perfect showman, blowing kisses and playing to all areas of the stadium (there truly wasn’t a bad seat) as he traversed the platforms that extended to the furthest parts of the floor.

He wanted his fans to have “the best motherf—in’ night of their lives” and the deafening cheers were proof that for many people inside, it was an evening they won’t soon forget.

After releasing his sixth studio album Hurry Up Tomorrow earlier this year, the 35-year-old hitmaker said he planned to retire his stage name following the conclusion of his ongoing album trilogy that began with 2020’s After Hours and continued with 2022’s Dawn FM.

“You have a persona, but then you have the competition of it all. It becomes this rat race: more accolades, more success, more shows, more albums, more awards and more No. 1s. It never ends until you end it,” the 22-time Juno winner told Variety back in January.

His comments echoed past statements he had made about closing The Weeknd chapter of his career.

“I’m going through a cathartic path right now,” Tesfaye told W Magazine in 2023. “It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter. I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. Eventually. I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn.”

So, if Friday was about ending this era of his musical career, Tesfaye paid tribute to his many sides. All of the different Tesfayes that got him to a place where he could play in front of nearly 50,000 of his fellow Torontonians were on display and properly served.

What comes next is anyone’s guess — Tesfaye has dabbled in acting, fashion and comic books.

If the past 15 years are any indication, Tesfaye’s next incarnation will continue to push boundaries in ways that uniquely speak to who he is — and was — as an artist.

And we can’t wait to watch it all unfold.

mdaniell@postmedia.com

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