The Canadian superstar brings heartbreak, pyrotechnics and one of pop music’s most ambitious stadium productions back to London.
Few contemporary artists have expanded their universe quite like Abel Tesfaye. When House of Balloons appeared in 2011, The Weeknd was an elusive voice lurking in the shadows of alternative R&B, singing about love and emotional ruin over murky samples. Fifteen years later, he is filling Wembley Stadium for five nights with a show that turns those same anxieties into a pop opera.
The scale is extraordinary. The After Hours Til Dawn tour began in 2022 and has since become one of the defining stadium tours of the decade. By November 2025, promoter Live Nation said the tour had sold more than 7.5 million tickets across 153 shows and passed US$1 billion in gross revenue, making it the highest-grossing tour by a male solo artist. The 2026 extension has only increased those numbers, selling another three million tickets.
Three years have passed since I last saw The Weeknd live. In that time, the Canadian superstar has released one new album (2025’s Hurry Up Tomorrow) and one critically derided movie of the same name. And I once again find myself standing in almost exactly the same spot where I watched The Weeknd perform the same tour in 2023.
Playboi Carti provides the warm-up, stalking the stage in sunglasses with a cigarette in one hand and a microphone in the other. His compact set leans heavily into collaborations and features, with “Carnival” by Kanye West and Travis Scott’s “FE!N” drawing some of the loudest reactions. Soon enough, however, Wembley belongs to Abel.
The stage resembles the remains of some ruined civilisation. A vast post-apocalyptic cityscape crumbles towards a crucifix-shaped runway extending deep into the stadium floor. Red-robed, masked dancers move along it in ritualistic formations while, at its centre, an enormous golden android turns silently above the audience.
Into this dystopian congregation walks The Weeknd. Dressed almost entirely in black, with a heavy tactical-style vest and glittering crucifix, Tesfaye initially hides behind a mask whose eyes illuminate ruby red at carefully timed lyrical and musical cues. “Baptized in Fear”, “Open Hearts” and “Wake Me Up” form the opening sequence, all drawn from Hurry Up Tomorrow, his sixth album, released in January 2025 as the concluding chapter to the trilogy begun with After Hours and Dawn FM.
The songs immediately demonstrate why Tesfaye has succeeded where many studio-heavy R&B singers struggle in stadiums. His voice is bright, agile and unusually focused, allowing it to sit above layers of synthesiser and percussion rather than fighting them. Tesfaye has also spoken about the influence of Ethiopian music on his natural singing voice, adding another layer to a style frequently compared with Michael Jackson thanks to his trademark falsetto.
More importantly, he knows when not to over-sing. There is pleading fragility to “Call Out My Name” and “Die for You”, but greater vocal attack on “The Hills” and “Starboy”. The falsetto becomes an emotional device, piercing through the heavy production when required.
Structurally, After Hours Til Dawn resembles The Weeknd’s own version of Taylor Swift’s Eras show, tracing the different incarnations of a career built upon consistent themes of temptation, loneliness and self-destruction. “After Hours” and “Heartless” give way to the brighter electronic pulse of the Starboy years, while “House of Balloons” later reconnects the spectacle with his grittier beginnings.
Roughly a third of the way through, the mask disappears, replaced by dark sunglasses as “Faith”, “São Paulo” and “Until We’re Skin & Bones” push the concert forward. By “Cry for Me”, Wembley has become one enormous backing choir.
Then comes the blockbuster stretch. “Take My Breath”, “Sacrifice”, “How Do I Make You Love Me?” and “Can’t Feel My Face” arrive in rapid succession, showcasing how effortlessly Tesfaye moved from alternative R&B outsider to one of mainstream pop’s most dependable hitmakers. The mood darkens again for “Often”, “Given Up on Me” and “I Was Never There”, before “The Hills” erupts against walls of flame.
With Ariana Grande also performing in London this week, many fans may have hoped for an appearance from Tesfaye’s frequent collaborator. Instead, Playboi Carti rejoins him for “Timeless” and “Rather Lie”, sending the masked dancers into a cultish frenzy as the golden android begins firing lasers across the stadium.
Pyrotechnics prevail throughout a set approaching 40 songs and two hours. Yet they rarely overwhelm the music. “Creepin’”, “Out of Time”, “I Feel It Coming”, “Die for You” and “Is There Someone Else?” provide a particularly strong late run, while “One of the Girls” becomes an effective call-and-response moment between performer and crowd.
The final stretch leaves little unused ammunition. “Save Your Tears”, “Less Than Zero” and the inescapable “Blinding Lights” (the most-streamed song in Spotify history) transform Wembley into a field of lights and voices before “House of Balloons” and “Moth to a Flame” bring proceedings towards their fiery conclusion.
This is my third time seeing The Weeknd across his 15-year career, and each encounter has become progressively larger. Yet beneath the masks, flames and monumental architecture, the appeal remains strangely intimate. Tesfaye has built a catalogue around being lonely in crowded rooms and emotionally unavailable in intimate ones. Wembley Stadium simply provides the biggest possible setting for the contradiction.
Later this year, After Hours Til Dawn heads through Asia, including Singapore on 2 and 3 October before concluding with two Kuala Lumpur shows on 4 and 5 November. Meanwhile, Tesfaye continues to discuss eventually leaving The Weeknd moniker behind, describing the transition as something still in progress.
If this really is the beginning of the end for The Weeknd as a character, Wembley offers an appropriately extravagant testament to what he created. As the masked dancers circle their golden idol and fireworks explode above the stadium, it is difficult to escape the religious imagery.
For one night at least, Wembley was ready to worship at the altar of Abel Tesfaye.
Contact: www.theweeknd.com