Correspondent (Music)
In The Weeknd’s (Abel Tesfaye) languid, smoke-filled, perpetually melancholic universe, the after party will always sound better than the party itself, the comedown more intense than the high. And that is the reason why Abel Tesfaye’s music doesn’t quite make sense live. His ardent whispering loses most its mystery and the profound intimacy of his lyrics dissipates into thin air when shared in an arena filled with hundreds of people screaming his name.
Seductive and aloof, his onstage persona is the perfect tease which doesn’t quite deliver through a live 80-minute set, interrupted only by a few daring suggestions: “Can I get sexy for you Manchester?” But despite the fact that his songs’ charms are noticeably diminished by the amplifiers, the answer is still a unanimous “yes” from a buzzing crowd completely mesmerised by his natural showmanship.
“Adaptation” opens the show while his instantly recognisable croons pierce the crowd from behind an opaque curtain concealing his silhouette. If you want to read into it, this might seem like the perfect opening choice, considering the song’s message — a love forsaken for fame’s sake.
Stepping up to the stage’s edge, The Weeknd appears perfectly adapted to the new lifestyle. His new album Kiss Land goes out with a boom, purposely crafted for a live performance. Dominating the evening’s playlist, his brand new beats have a sharper edge and an angrier undertone, leaving no room for his older, bitterer works of his past “Echoes of Silence.”
The young Canadian R&B artiste appears deliciously confident in the spotlight. After years spent dodging public appearances and shrouding himself in mystery, he is now at ease filling the stage with his larger-than-life appetite for decadent love. But this new charmingly arrogant poise and self-assurance clearly came at a price: his house style, formerly full of nuance and subtlety, is lost to opulence. Moreover, somewhere in the process, visuals took over phonetics, as proven when the screens behind him flare up with carefully cut and mixed porn scenes, shying away the cheers and distracting everyone from his voice droning on in the background.
The performance veers back on track when he launches into “Live For”, openly declaring his devotion to his enthusiastic fans: “This the s*** that I live for, with the people I’d die for.” Endearing, but what we’re all really waiting for is the famed trance-inducing gem off his playlist — Wicked Games, a song that often comes for a last emotional sweep after the lights have dimmed and doubts of his return has crept up on the audience.
Strategically ending the gig with the very song which catapulted him to stardom, Wicked Games delivers once again the same promise of corrupt fame and fleeting ecstasy: “Bring the cups baby I can bring the drink, Bring your body baby I can bring you fame.”
Despite the forever nagging reminder that live music doesn’t quite hold that secret ingredient which seduced everyone there in the first place, The Weeknd’s perpetual infatuation with fame and starry eyed fans is contagious. He had a blast, and so did we.
Image Courtesy: Alanzadeh, Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported¦ Wikimedia Commons
Cipriana Botez
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