At the end of “Heartless,” the fifth song of the night, Abel Tesfaye finally takes off his dystopian-esque chrome mask. He raises it with a look on his face that some would call anguish and some would call the look of a man who’s made it.
That is when Friday night at Soldier Field truly begins, and The Weeknd meets us as Abel — the birth name he’s considering returning to, he said in a January interview with Variety.
The “After Hours Till Dawn” tour features 37 songs spanning his six studio albums, with a focus on his latest, Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025), excluding surprise setlist additions.
Despite the near 60,000 capacity of Soldier Field, the entire concert felt surprisingly intimate. Tesfaye stands alone onstage for much of the show, his presence amplified by towering cathedral-style architecture and a personally commissioned statue of a “sexy robot.” It is intricate, yet minimalist compared to something like Eras Tour-style extravagance — an aesthetic choice that leaves space for Tesfaye’s vulnerability to grasp the stage.
It is not hard to see what lies beneath the pyrotechnics and apocalyptic set design of the night: a boy raised by Ethiopian immigrants, with a childhood shaped by poverty, drug abuse, homelessness and the unrelenting, weakening ache for love.
Throughout the night, he weaves Chicago into his songs like a love letter, speaking directly to his fans. During the “Die For You” bridge, Tesfaye pleads, “Do you love me, Chicago?”
He’s draped in a sparkling black and gold cloak, presenting himself almost as a prophetic figure, flanked by dancers dressed in Handmaid’s Tale-like crimson gowns and masks that leave no piece of skin exposed. They are the only performers who ever grace the stage, except the popstar himself.
The acoustics were near-flawless throughout the concert, with occasional flashes of fire and fireworks making fans feel the heat during beat drops of songs like the evergreen hit “The Hills.”
The surprises to the setlist included “Stargirl Interlude” featuring Lana Del Rey and “The Morning” from Tesfaye’s debut album “House of Balloons.” During one of his newer hits, “Timeless,” opener Playboi Carti returned and both delivered an explosive performance — energy and crowd work that brought a young kid onstage to sing with them, capturing one of the rare moments when Tesfaye broke into a full smile.
The visuals on the screen were interesting, to say the least, with a mix of fog and water engulfing the screen during “Niagara Falls” and two robot heads kissing a few songs before.
The overall aesthetic, although clearly futuristic and cyberpunk-ish, is perplexing at times.
Although Tesfaye makes it clear that he’s entering a new era, he obfuscates what this era actually entails. What does it truly mean that he’s shedding The Weeknd persona?: Who is Abel Tesfaye?
Instead of answering these questions, in “After Hours Till Dawn,” Tesfaye lets the music speak for itself. For two straight hours, he unabashedly sings his lungs out, sounding indistinguishable from his recorded vocals. The concert is a testament to the volume of hit songs he’s had over the years that have rendered him timeless.
It is easy to miss the depth buried in The Weeknd’s music. Although he has his fair share of thirst-trap anthems and steamy-situationship music, he also has gems like “Baptized In Fear” that shed light on the tortures of fame and the torment of depression.
“Figure in the corner laughing at me,” he sings. “Water fills my lungs, vision blurry. Heartbeat slower, heartbeat slower, heartbeat slower. Voices will tell me that I should carry on,”
The Weeknd has always been for the ones who struggle to lift their masks, to accept the full mess of who they truly are. As he now learns to do the same, fans can only wait and see what he does when this tour ends — who he truly is, after hours, till dawn.
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