Review: The Weeknd uplifts Minneapolis music fans on a dark and gloomy day

It was an unforgettable Saturday. There was a gaudy military parade in Washington D.C., ardent protests around the entire country and a traumatic shooting of two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses in Twin Cities suburbs. To top it off, the apocalypse came to U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday night.

Surrounded by about 30 mysterious masked creatures in red robes marching in a crumbling cityscape, the Canadian pop mega-star known as the Weeknd, a hooded, bemasked man with glowing eyes, dragged more than 50,000 people into “The Abyss.”

“Let’s end it all, the world’s not far behind,” the Dr. Doom-like figure in the sparkling black robe sang accompanied by descending orchestral music. “So what’s the point of staying?”

OK, this is show-biz, escapist entertainment, the land of make-believe. However, it may have resonated differently on this eventful Saturday.

The 2¼-hour concert was a dark depiction of depression and dystopia on a dark and cloudy day in Minneapolis and America, leavened by occasional hits like “Starboy” and “Blinding Lights” and thundering neo-disco beats that made it possible to momentarily forget the day’s news.

The Weeknd probably wasn’t intending any political or social commentary. Wasn’t he just trying to kill off the character he created and return to real-life Abel Tesfaye, a movie-loving music maker?

In an interview with Variety magazine in January, he acknowledged that “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” his 2025 album and companion theatrical movie of the same name, were the final chapter in the existence of the Weeknd, a dark persona he’d created in 2011 that has led to massive international stardom.

The tour that the Weeknd brought to Minneapolis — his first local appearance since 2017 at Xcel Energy Center — was actually supposed to start in 2020 in support of his then-new “After Hours” album. The pandemic postponed the tour, which was rescheduled for 2021-22 but the Weeknd scrapped that arena trek (including a St. Paul date) in order to take it to stadiums in 2023, supporting the 2022 album “Dawn FM.” So complicated, kind of like many things with the Weeknd.

The current show for the After Hours Till Dawn Stadium Tour has been retooled this year to incorporate “Hurry Up Tomorrow.” In fact, 11 songs from his sixth full length, including “The Abyss,” were featured in the 40-song set on Saturday.

It was an ambitious, cinematic performance filled with moping ballads, stylish electro-pop bops and dancefloor bangers with the Weeknd’s often-depressing lyrical themes masked by glossy musical production.

Even his staging reflected the dichotomy: Part city of ruins and part futuristic world, with a giant rotating gold statue (imagine if C-3PO and Rolls-Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy had an adult daughter) created by Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama in the intersection of cross-shaped runways.

The Weeknd has demonstrated his true cinematic ambitions with both his acting — the polarizing projects “The Idol” for HBO in 2023 and May’s “Hurry Up Tomorrow” movie that earned a putrid 14% on Rotten Tomatoes — and his 2021 Super Bowl halftime, for which he spent $7 million of his own money on a slick production with 115 dancers.

Saturday’s concert was even more lavish, an arrestingly visual production from blinking lights and nearly incessant strobes to the mammoth video screen backdrop with quirky images (a head removed from a statute) or live performance close-ups.

Those shots revealed the Weeknd to be a more engaged and present performer, with a warmer and more energetic presence, than his videos might suggest. During “Out of Time,” he even jumped into the pit and held his microphone up to the mouths of four fortunate fans to sing a line. They were overjoyed, of course, and he responded with a high-five for one dude.

On record, the Weeknd is known for his high-pitched voice that often sounds electronically manipulated. In the concert, the 35-year-old sang without gimmickry for the most part, sounding more emotionally committed than performative.

After opening with “The Abyss” and “Wake Me Up,” the Weeknd shifted into older party bangers “Starboy” and “Heartless,” with a video depicting a downward spiral. Then he dramatically removed his mask to the delight of fans, basking in the moment, raising his arms like a NHL champion hoisting the Stanley Cup.

Backed by a three-man band, the Weeknd delivered a few deep tracks for Day 1 fans such as “High for This” and “House of Balloons.” Playboi Carter, the Atlanta rapper whose brief opening set was unmemorable, joined the Weeknd for two numbers, “Timeless” and “Rather Lie,” in the middle of the show.

In a move seemingly borrowed from a Broadway script, the Weeknd delivered his mega-smash “Blinding Lights” — Spotify’s most streamed song of all time at 4.88 billion — as the show’s 11 o’clock song, and then carried on for a few more selections, ending with the Swedish House Mafia collaboration, “Moth to a Flame,” augmented by a multitude of flamethrowers.

After his generous, overdue return to Minneapolis, fans of Abel Tesfaye clearly want the Weeknd to last forever.