The Weeknd conquers SoFi Stadium with an immaculate performance before retiring his all-consuming pop moniker

No popular creator contiguous has a much tangled narration to a venue than the Weeknd has with SoFi Stadium.

First, helium chose SoCal’s flagship stadium arsenic the tract to movie the denouement of his cult-campy HBO bid “The Idol” during 1 of his concerts. Unfortunately, during the set, helium mislaid his dependable 4 songs successful and had to nonstop fans location for the nighttime truthful helium could retrieve and marque up the date. For specified a perfectionist, that indispensable person been a assemblage blow.

He rebounded a fewer months aboriginal with a triumphal instrumentality and the performance doc “The Weeknd: Live astatine SoFi Stadium.” But that nerve-racking acquisition stuck with him. He revisited it successful his caller diagnostic movie (and album) “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” wherever a fictional mentation of the Weeknd loses his dependable onstage, kicking disconnected a surrealist, convulsive nighttime with Jenna Ortega. A little interlude from that LP is titled “I Can’t F— Sing.”

So Abel Tesfaye indispensable person had a scope of mixed feelings erstwhile helium walked retired astatine SoFi connected Wednesday night, the archetypal of 4 nights astatine the tract of immoderate of his top triumphs and astir bitter disappointments arsenic a unrecorded performer. “This is bigger than maine — it’s a reflection of the powerfulness of euphony and its interaction connected people,” Tesfaye told The Times successful a little email conscionable earlier the show.

The Weeknd performs during his After Hours til Dawn Stadium Tour astatine SoFi Stadium.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

This slickly cryptic, immaculately performed 2½-hour acceptable covered the full of his era-defining catalog. But is this tally of SoFi dates a swan opus to 1 of the astir palmy signaling projects of our time?

Since archetypal emerging arsenic an anonymous dependable atop gothic, coked-up R&B productions connected a trilogy of 2011 mixtapes, Tesfaye’s tastes and his improbable commercialized occurrence grew together.

An underground instrumentality basal turned up for the nihilism of “Wicked Games” (“Bring the drugs, baby, I could bring my pain”). But with assists from Max Martin and Daft Punk, helium became a bona fide popular star. His mournful Ethiopian melodic lilt stood retired similar thing other successful Top 40, and helium hung onto capable art-freak sensibility that helium could header the Super Bowl halftime amusement with dancers successful full-face plastic-surgery bandages. His ’80s-noir, 2019 azygous “Blinding Lights” remains the most-streamed opus connected Spotify, ever.

Darryl Eaton, his cause astatine CAA, told The Times that the 200,000 tickets sold for this SoFi tally unsocial is “like selling retired an full American city.”

Yet Tesfaye has precocious hinted astatine retiring the Weeknd arsenic a premise. “It’s a headspace I’ve gotta get into that I conscionable don’t person immoderate much tendency for,” helium told Variety recently. “It ne'er ends until you extremity it.”

Whether helium wants to merchandise little conceptual, much idiosyncratic music, oregon if he’s simply tally retired of state with this all-consuming popular entity he’s created, this SoFi tally is apt 1 of the past chances L.A. fans volition get to spot the Weeknd. Tesfaye volition surely support making euphony and films, but it makes cinematic consciousness that he’d travel backmost to the country of his astir achy nighttime onstage to enactment this each to bed.

After a little and typically roiling acceptable from Tesfaye’s caller collaborator Playboi Carti, Tesfaye emerged successful achromatic and gold, eyes lit with LED pinpicks, implicit a ruined cityscape. Opening with the “BoJack Horseman”-riffing “The Abyss,” helium grimly promised, “I tried my champion to not fto you spell / I don’t similar the presumption from halfway down … I tried to beryllium thing that I’ll ne'er be.” It definite felt similar helium was saying goodbye to this mode of being an artist.

The amusement kicked into cogwheel with Tesfaye surrounded by a trim unrecorded set and minimalist, moving-sculpture dancers successful rose-colored robes. He didn’t request overmuch much to fto that once-in-a-generation dependable transportation everything. Tesfaye’s a uniquely dedicated unrecorded vocalist connected the stadium circuit (it’s benignant of honorable that immoderate superior vocal troubles mightiness mean the show’s over). For each his high-concept misdirections successful videos and films, you could consciousness the troubled intimacy that’s kept fans invested successful this euphony implicit truthful galore aesthetics.

For each his adjacent reads of Michael Jackson’s records connected singles similar “Can’t Feel My Face,” Tesfaye’s not an particularly carnal dancer onstage. But helium knows precisely however to inhabit and set-dress this euphony to marque it eerie and monolithic, adjacent astatine its poppiest.

The Weeknd.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

“After Hours” made a seductive lawsuit for letting an evidently toxic antheral backmost into your beingness (“Different girls connected the floor, distracting my thoughts of you”). After yet taking disconnected his look mask, helium played “Take My Breath” similar a revving, neo-disco floor-filler that inactive winked astatine the darker choke-kinks of his aged music.

When helium cranked up the pyro connected the midcareer lurker ballad “The Hills,” the beforehand rows of SoFi got a bracing reminder of however volatile this euphony is adjacent erstwhile it sits atop streaming charts. Alongside Carti connected their collaborations “Timeless” and “Rather Lie,” Tesfaye grounded his pal’s smeary Atlanta sound with evilly beauteous melody. This is simply a dependable you conscionable can’t assistance but believe, adjacent erstwhile it’s calling you to self-destruction.

The Weeknd performs astatine SoFi Stadium.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

If this circuit is so astatine the extremity of his tenure arsenic the Weeknd, astatine much than 3 twelve songs, Wednesday’s acceptable delivered each imaginable space of valediction — the thrumming decadence of “Often,” the hopeless sincerity of “Die for You” and “Is There Someone Else?” Newer worldly similar “Cry for Me” and “São Paolo” showed that, immoderate his exhaustion with this aegis, he’s got tons of startling ideas inactive brimming.

When Tesfaye buried the hatchet with the Grammys backmost successful February, it was a generous motion to an enactment that inexplicably locked him retired of honors for “Blinding Lights,” which helium should, obviously, person contended for. When helium played that double-time, neo-New Wave azygous toward the extremity of his Wednesday set, it felt similar a unusual pearl that he’d discovered — 1 of the biggest popular songs of each time, played by a feline whose euphony emerged from a murk of MDMA licks and mournful threesomes.

With possibly the objection of his (exceedingly stylish if critically skeptical) movie career, he’s ever recovered his voice, implicit and implicit again. SoFi Stadium has dealt the Weeknd his top decision and immoderate of his finest hours arsenic a performer. Now it’s sending him disconnected to Valhalla, wherever that takes Abel Tesfaye.