“If you’re not talking about Friday and Saturday, then what is The Weekend?” is a question I used to get often when talking about my slight obsession with breakthrough Canadian artist Abel Tesfaye. The Weeknd wasn't a "what," but rather a "who." Just a kid when he began singing, The Weeknd’s stage name comes from the fact that he and his best friend, Lamar Taylor, dropped out of school, left home one weekend, and didn’t come back. Those years between post adolescence and adulthood were blurry ones for the melancholy songbird, and led to some of his best music.
Throughout 2011, The Weeknd released three separate mixtapes entitled "House of Balloons," "Thursday," and "Echoes of Silence." He refused to do interviews or even take pictures. I was a fan of his music for almost two years without knowing what he looked like, and that’s the way he preferred it. At that time, it was more important that his music got the recognition, not him. Then, the following year, he released a compilation album called "Trilogy," with remixed versions of previous songs and three new songs. In 2013 he released his official debut album "Kiss Land," but it wasn’t until 2015 when he released his second studio album, "Beauty Behind the Madness," that The Weeknd gained international acclaim. The hit songs “Earned It,” “The Hills” and the song of summer 2015, “Can’t Feel My Face,” made The Weeknd the first artist in history to simultaneously hold all three top spots on the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart.
My first time seeing The Weeknd in concert, I went by myself to a little venue downtown, and it was a phenomenal experience. With a $40 ticket that I bought the night of the concert, I got to watch an amazing show, meet him afterwards and have my CD signed. He was polite with a soft smile, and you could immediately tell the difference between his onstage persona and the person he actually is. Two years later, many things have changed.
I saw him again in concert on December 17th in a sold out arena filled with thousands of people. Though I had meet and greet passes, there was no shaking his hand and exchanging words, or taking pictures with his talkative but more than likely cross faded band (pianist Ladarius ‘LJ’ Jones, drummer Ricky Lewis and guitarist Patrick Greenaway.) No, to have that experience one would have to pay quite a pretty penny. Still, some things don’t change.
The crowd of passionate fans swayed and sung their hearts out to every song; half were high out of their minds, the others might as well have been. That’s the effect that The Weeknd’s music can have on you, if you let it. It’s a feeling, an aura most won’t understand unless they allow themselves to let go and experience the seemingly unknown. Toward the end of his last song he said “either Tampa got bigger, or the venue got bigger.” However, it was indeed he who had grown in size. The Weeknd legitimately owned 2015 from start to finish, and I have a feeling that was only an appetizer of what’s to come.
