Why The Weeknd Matters, to Me and Why I Left His Concert Early
Two months ago, if someone told me that I’d leave The Weeknd’s: After Hours Til Dawn concert early, I would’ve scoffed in their face, possibly inquired if they were deaf as an adder, and blatantly said, “Nope, he’s top five. You don’t do that to your top five.” As a matter of fact, six months ago, in my tiny studio apartment, I remember staring at the price of floor tickets, grinding my teeth, toggling back and forth if the financial dig was worth it.
But then, like any logical graduate student, I pictured myself living out the plot from Almost Famous, waiting by the tour bus, pulling a William Miller, convincing Abel Tesfaye, more popularly known as The Weeknd, that I worked for Rolling Stone, and finishing out the tour with him. My imagination was enough to sell me on the egregiously priced tickets. So I purchased them and wrote them off as selfish birthday presents for my close girlfriend, Miranda. Candidly, if there were only two tickets left, don’t put a game of Five Finger Fillet past me. Top five, right?
How do artists make it into our top five? What does that even mean?
The first time I heard The Weeknd’s music was the first time I fell in love—really fell in love. Not young high school love. It was more like the “I’m about to drop this tray full of plates that I need to take to table seven because my feet are officially stuck to the floor from years of spilled alcohol as I watch the kitchen manager through the server window flip burgers while his sweat drips into the patties as ‘Starboy’ plays” kind of love. I swear I wasn’t living under a rock. I knew “Starboy” was on the radio. I clocked it as a feel-good beat, but didn’t really see it until that moment.
As all clichés go: time moves in slow motion when you fall in love. The music — if it happens to be present — becomes the pin, allowing you to measure the moment in time, because moments like that either fade or remain present. They are impossible to measure, and, if we are lucky, music can do that for us.
Quick quartermission: You may have caught how I used the word see to describe music. This is instrumental to understanding my experience at the concert; let me address it. I call it railroad brain. Certain pitches in music or simply a voice do not register pleasantly. Picture two senses as trains — sight and sound — on a Ticket to Ride board. San Francisco to Salt Lake City is the route. Displayed is a dual-track (side-by-side). Breaking the rules, sight and sound venture to the Salt Lake City station in a manner of Hopscotch, Frogger, and the occasional crash. Because with railroad brain, your senses continue to operate after a crash or a shift to the wrong track. Over time, I’ve found baseball caps help with loud overhead lighting. And then there is music like The Weeknd’s where every layer of sound— voice, chords, synth, bass and reverb is like a prism of colors sewn in a weighted blanket of sound, reminding me that I get to navigate the Ticket to Ride board by way of Hopscotch. In layman’s terms, it is called synesthesia.
The album After Hours was released on March 20, 2020. It came at the perfect time. Friends, I hate to break it to you. The sweaty kitchen manager was getting sweaty elsewhere on the weekends, probably with The Weeknd playing. However, we can’t blame Abel for creating baby-making music.
That thing I do with music — pinning it to specific moments in time with people — it can be challenging to move forward, listening to the same artist after a rough breakup. Not with The Weeknd. Nope. Nope. Nope. If anything, he made it easier to heal, escaping into sound and color, allowing room for a copacetic space. His music gave meaning to the word favorite. I hated that word. I found it boring when people asked me, “What’s your favorite…[insert blah blah blah noun].” But, as we all grow up, I finally have a few favorite blah blah blahs. One being a Weeknd song, and it’s “Alone Again.” I swear, I became a real witch in whatever synthesized fifth dimension Abel goes into to create the goosebump mythical perfectness of sightsound.
Needless to say, even so, I’m still going to. The Weeknd is a massive score in the soundtrack to my life. One time, a woman who knew about my Spotify “On Repeat” playlist and had had it with me sniffling about the sweaty kitchen manager, bent down at a party and said, “Save your tears for another day!” If you didn’t know, those are lyrics from The Weeknd’s 2020 hit “Save Your Tears.”
What a badge.
Now for the kismet bit. Miranda and I bonded over music. Sprawled out, starfish style, eyes to the ceiling, Bose speaker blaring, a music-based linguistic identity forming— I recall sharing the previous story with her. Maybe it was the wine-induced vulnerability. Maybe it was the reason that meeting someone new gives you no reason to harbor secrets or feign emotions. Maybe it was the welcome weight of The Weeknd’s voice. Who knows. What I do know is that I told her it stung getting that badge. By the end of the night, I also knew I wanted to see all top five with her. Hence the selfish birthday ground-floor tickets.
Here are a few things about concerts, for me. At 32, I’ve experienced enough concerts to know I don’t care to watch the ant version of the artist crawling around on stage, coupled with a giant version of themselves on a skyscraper screen for the ant-like audience on their end for us to see. Concerts are only as good as the company you bring and only as good as the company you seek. When I attend, I fully intend to burst an eardrum (the tinnitus is real) along with harvesting my lungs to whichever artist I’m feet away from.
On Saturday, May 31, dressed in black and covered in glitter, myself and Miranda made our way to Soldier Field for The Weeknd: After Hours Til Dawn Tour. We sifted through the hordes of people, showing our tickets to pass each gate. It was one of the million “going through the motions” goal-fueled hazes I share with her. I had to yank Miranda back when I saw the tour bus. The few minutes we spent ogling that bus were more profound than all the seconds combined at the concert. Just like hearing “Starboy” for the first time, my feet were cemented to the ground, and a montage from the years of The Weeknd’s music unfolded from my railroad brain. If only I were William Miller and Abel Tesfaye replaced Russell Hammond and Chicago was a 1969 San Diego. Miranda had to yank me away. We kept moving.
In 2025 Chicago concert reality, a bunch of unnecessary security guards block the entrance. As soon as we arrived at the ground floor gate, we were denied entry and told to “go find the lockers” half a mile away due to the fact that my fanny pack was too big. That’s right y’all, my fanny pack. Because in 2025 concert reality, security guards who resemble Napoleon Dynamite and weaponize measuring tape have more power than the people of Chicago.
Furiously and frantically, we checked my fanny pack and furiously and frantically made it back to Napoleon Dynamite. Finding no need to use the measuring tape, he ushered us in with a nod of approval. Finally, we were through the last gate and onto the ground floor.
Seats.
People were sitting. Who the whatchadidjasaynowwhat? Who buys ground-floor tickets with assigned seats expecting there to be seats with willing bottoms to sit? Do you know who? I sure don’t. Please write a letter to the editor with this information.
I wanted sweaty bodies smashed up against the stage. Not this organized orchestral hodgepodge. A fan sitting next to us (bless her heart) literally offered us popcorn like we were about to sit down and watch a film. I looked at Miranda wondering if we just walked into an episode of The Twilight Zone. It felt so off and abnormal for a concert. Possibly, in this setting, I should have factored in naivety. This was the one and only time I had ground tickets at Soldier Field. Adjacent, a group of fans snapped selfies on a vacant and roped-off VIP stage. Instantly, I knew what I already should have known. The Weeknd draws fans from all over the world. Someone else in that crowd conjured up a Dani William Abel Russell Rolling Stone variant.
When The Weeknd came out, I stood there seething at images of this golden glittering masked god displayed on a sea of cellphones obstructing my view from the live show. I didn’t pay to watch The Weeknd on TV. I was upset. I couldn’t help myself.
I blurted out, “Put your phones away and have one authentic moment in your life!”
Nobody cared. Determined to join the masses in not caring, I shuffled around and hopped on my tippy toes to catch as many glimpses of The Weeknd as I could. So. Many. Cellphones. At one point, I craned my neck backwards to look at the sky. Thousands — little dots of light mimicked stars, encompassing the stadium. I feared the idea of pinning music to a specific moment in time would be blotted out by the thousands of little dots and archived into some cyber cellphone music monolith.
Here comes the kicker. A fan directly behind me screamed every word, coloring the concert, propelling us to leave early. This fan was screaming bloody murder like this was an episode of The Twilight Zone. I mean, she wasn’t just harvesting her lungs; she was offering up her organs. She managed to shred the precious rainbow prism weighted blanket The Weekend’s voice secretly crafted for me into violent grey beads and directly blast them at my eyeballs and ears. It was painful. I attempted to stay. I kindly asked her friends if she could quiet down. They shrugged and returned to supporting their screaming friend. Fair. That fan came with the company you want to keep.
The set was incredible. He was incredible. Surrounding him in rows were these mysterious dancers cloaked in red, sporting gold masks. I couldn’t decipher if they were in relation to Star Wars and politically fueled or if they were there to be a piece of artwork, like The Weeknd himself.
Either way, if time travel wasn’t an issue. If I was able to go back to myself six months ago in the tiny studio apartment where I was stewing over the financial dig — I’d still do it, because I wouldn’t know otherwise.
Header Image by Dani Snedeker
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