2023-07-19 00:00:32
Updated Wednesday, July 19, 2023 – 00:00
The Canadian, the most listened to global music star on digital platforms, debuts in Madrid with the mission of living up to his million-dollar figures
A moment of the concert of the American artist The Weeknd this Tuesday at the Metropolitano.EFE
How are the concerts of the most popular artist in the world? Do they live up to their stunning figures? The Weeknd is the most listened to musician on digital platforms, number one on Spotify with over 106 million monthly listeners. How can someone transfer that almost divine grandeur to the earthly, to the physical shock of a gig? With this mission, the 33-year-old Canadian began his performance at the Civitas Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid on Tuesday night, with almost everything sold, in what is his first tour in Spain outside of festivals, and his debut in Madrid, which will have a second stop in Barcelona this Thursday at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys.
We said almost divine grandiosity, and the idea serves to describe the character, who broke out more than a decade ago with a mix of modern, sexy and sophisticated r&b fueled by his blinding ambition. Even then, he wanted to be pop above all else, to reach mass audiences and be the center of larger-than-life shows. And that brings us to Madrid, tonight, at the Atleti stadium. From the start it takes us not to a concert, but to the universe that has emerged from his mind: a city of skyscrapers and imposing towers spreads across the stage, dominating everything, camouflaging the band, which blends into the metallic buildings like an anachronistic reflection.
The Weeknd symbolizes the sign of his time. Little matters what happens at the instrumental level, the technical expertise. The band is hardly seen. The essential thing is the concept, the performance -that anglicism so difficult to translate accurately-, what is around. In this case, more than 20 dancers dressed from top to bottom with tunics, who could well be supporters of a ‘Handmaid’s tale’ sect but in white tones. They trace their choreographies along the immense corridor that crosses the masses of fans. There, in the center, stands a robotic superhero figure, looking up at the sky, intimidating, arms outstretched behind him. And at the end of the hall a moon that changes color, a metaphor for the moods of the concert.
At the center of everything is him. The big screens will practically only focus on him during the entire show. There are, of course, new tricks that follow the logic of capitalism: more, always more. The tremendous jets of fire spit out heat that hits you in the face. The games of lights are those of a disco for more than 50,000 people, who dance to the sound that marks a plastic bracelet that they received with the ticket and changes color – a trick that Coldplay already introduced years ago, that of making you feel part of what happens, be one more-, matching the moon and the lights that the stage shoots through the musicians.
The concept of the disco is important. With this tour, The Weeknd compensates for the frustration of releasing his most danceable and partying album, ‘After Hours’, in 2020, with the pandemic. Those songs and those of the most recent ‘Dawn FM’, from 2022, dominate the repertoire, which, however, reaches his first peak with one of the old singles, ‘The Hills’, from 2015. The same thing happens with ‘Starboy’, from the 2016 album of the same name, a song originally recorded with Daft Punk that spreads that feeling of a massive dance floor, a claim to the hedonism that has always accompanied an elusive and controversial figure -tremendous negative reviews of his series ‘The Idol’, for HBO-, the last millennial icon of sexy nihilism.
Son more than 30 songs in a couple of hours, where the biggest problem is that The Weeknd, an artist who really likes himself, he also ends up camouflaged by the megalomaniac proportions of the show, with the audience playing ‘Where’s Wally?’ to place him among all that mess, whose repertoire sums up his career -memorable songs like the ballad ‘The Morning’, karaoke hits like ‘Blinding Lights’, some disco rush and many other correct but forgetful ones, which is the worst that can be said of pop. Verdict? It’s impossible to keep those millions of digital listeners happy when you’re performing in the real world.
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