Super Bowl 55: The weeknd
Performing in front of over 100 million viewers on live TV only 10 years after releasing your first song is seemingly unheard of, but not for Abel Tesfaye, more commonly known as The Weeknd. This past Sunday, The Weeknd blew fans away with his performance at the 55th Super Bowl.
The Weeknd, a 30-year-old, pop-R&B singer, songwriter, and producer, who resides in Canada, is known for mixing R&B with ‘80’s beats to encompass a heart-wrenching storyline whilst getting the crowd on their feet. The singer’s music was influenced by his Ethiopian upbringing, in which he describes his musical style in a Pitchfork interview: “The feeling in my music and in my voice is very Ethiopian and very African and much more powerful than anything, technically.”
The Super Bowl performance featured a multitude of individualistic concerts, traveling viewers through each era of The Weeknd’s journey. The show began with “Starboy,” by displaying a futuristic Las Vegas skyline with a robotic chorus scattered throughout, alluding to his self-awareness of how fame and wealth turns celebrities into robotic formulas, as displayed throughout the lyrics of Starboy. Midway through the performance, Tesfaye gets personal with the audience in “Can’t Feel My Face,” in which he enters into a mirrored box full of Vegas casino lights behind the stage while spinning and singing to the camera with a selfie stick in hand. As he sings the chorus, dancers matching his black and red suit to-a-tee. They stumble around in face bandages, serving as symbolism for Hollywood’s manipulation of people to fit into the culture by changing who they are. Tesfaye finishes out the performance with his biggest ‘80’s-esque hit: “Blinding Lights.” It is unclear as to whether “Blinding Lights” is about drug use or his ex-girlfriend, Bella Hadid; however, either way, the performance demonstrates that they are both capable of blinding you from reality and transporting you into your own fantasy. The Weeknd and hundreds of background dancers, all serving as replicas of one another in red and black suits with face bandages, symmetrically lined the entirety of the football field with lights in hand, marching. As the intro of the song elevates pitch, the dancers begin sporadically dancing around the field, revealing the chaos that goes on in one’s mind as the feeling of drugs and love overtake you, as if you are “blinded by the lights” of reality.
Looking back at his rise to fame, The Weeknd’s first musical appearance was an anonymous Youtube video for his single titled “What You Need” in 2011. Upon releasing his first single, Drake took notice of the artists’ talents, bringing The Weeknd onto his single “Crew Love” in 2012, which shortly became The Weeknd’s Billboard Hot 100 debut. Four years and two albums later,The Weeknd blew up with his single “Can’t Feel My Face,” in his “Beauty Behind the Madness” album, breaking precedent as his first Hot 100 No. 1 hit.
Now, 10 years after Abel Tesfaye’s musical debut, he has won three Grammy Awards and eight Billboard Music Awards amongst a plethora of others. His After Hours Worldwide Tour was announced just a few days ago, with dates encompassing the entirety of 2022 with 66 shows.
— Anna Johnson