Concert review: The Weeknd brings sin, good times to Amalie Arena in Tampa

Abel Tesfaye didn’t owe Tampa anything at the end of his 90-plus minute set last night. And as the lights dimmed on a demented take of “The Hills” for a fired-up, near sell-out crowd at Amalie Arena, it seemed like the show was over — and that’d be just fine.

And while the lot of the sideboob-bearing, skinny jean-wearing room of ganja-vaping enthusiasts started to trickle towards the concourses at the song's conclusion, they were forced to turn around because Tesfaye — the 25-year-old crooner otherwise known as The Weeknd — came back to give what felt like the first real curtain call of 2015. [Text by Ray, photos by Tracy]

Anyone who's listened to Top 40 radio this year knows the man’s voice, and anyone with access to YouTube are likely quite familiar with Tesfaye’s hair, an enigmatic marriage of Karo tribesman style and every person who gives no fucks about looking cool. His stature is subtle, but his presence is beyond gigantic. And despite all that fame, his encore, “Wicked Games,” was a deep cut off debut mixtape House Of Balloons, which he first released online for free back in 2011.

"Wicked Games" is almost six minutes of treble-stripped, lazy guitar and drugged-out beats that buoy lyrics about emptying bank accounts to shower strippers with cash. Tesfaye wants his object of objectification to dance, take shots and say she loves him. He admits he “needs confidence in myself,” and is also quite frank about the fact he left his girl back home. “I don’t love her no more,” he sings to open the first stanza.

It’s fucking dark, and sad, and nearly every godforsaken soul that remained in the venue sang along to almost every single syllable of that track.

A few moments before that, Tesfaye literally had everyone going off to Billboard’s No. 1 song of the year — “I Can’t Feel My Face.” There were young folks shouting along to lyrics about being coked out on a Friday, with their parents there. There were old folk shouting along to lyrics about being coked out on a Friday; they were probably trying to figure out where to do some blow after the show or having flashbacks to their days driving around in their Chevy Novas with speckles of snow on their top lips.

And that’s how it goes for the Weeknd these days. He’s been a special guest at squeaky-clean Taylor Swift shows. He sings hyper-sexualized songs from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack on the Today show. Shit, earlier this week, he teamed up with Ryan Seacrest to cheer up patients at the Atlanta Children’s Hospital. Ask Google for the photographic proof — the kids were stoked.

In sum, the man is powerful. There’s power in his songs’ amazing samples (Soul Dog’s “Can’t Stop Loving You” shows up on the Kanye-produced “Tell Your Friends,” a ridiculously good R&B tune with a lyric that reads “...dope dimes on some coke lines / gimme head all night cum four times”). There’s power in his Michael Jackson fandom (he teased a cover of “Dirty Diana”). There’s power in his era-spanning pop sensibilities (“In The Night” is straight out of a 1982 skating rink). There’s power in his stage production (the red strobes during “High For This” would’ve knocked your grandma out in an instant). But he wields the ultimate power in the way he bridges the gaps that exist between the people who love his music.

Half of The Weeknd’s audience are, in fact, the “basic” people he sings about in “Tell Your Friends.” They go to work five days a week, build 401Ks, and eat lunch at their desks so they can get an appetizer at Olive Garden on Saturday. They do it missionary style — if they’re lucky. The other half of Tesfaye's disciples are, in fact, kind of nuts. They like cigarette hazed dive bars and getting so drunk their bodies tingle. They don’t take Ubers when they’re wasted and almost always have that completely unnecessary drink on the way home. They’ve probably masturbated at work. And they accomplish all that by Wednesday.

But all those people were in the room side-by-side on Thursday, and they all had a really good time together. It was like the ultimate office Christmas party. The Weeknd played the intimate Straz Center just two years ago, where his show featured softcore Japanese porn playing in the background, likely the most intense theater show of the last half decade. Last night, he proved he had no trouble transitioning to an arena.

It’s kind of a shame that Coldplay is performing at the Superbowl halftime show, because Tesfaye would slay a stadium.

His voice is a beacon of light in a Top 40 landscape that is on the upswing but still ostensibly sterile. His knack for melody and dead honest lyrics about the worst of the modern human condition will probably never be replicated in the mainstream again. He let’s us admit that we’re prisoners of our addictions. He did indeed throw the “biggest party in the city” on Thursday, and whether or not you were actually on something while enjoying it, you did definitely wanted to be high for it.

Setlist
01. Real Love
02. Losers
03. Acquainted
04. Often
05. High For This
06. The Party & The After Party
07. King Of The Fall
08. Crew Love
09. Professional
10. The Morning
11. House Of Balloons
12. Glass Table Girls
13. Pray 4 Love *
14. Antidote *
15. Tell Your Friends
16. Shameless
17. As You Are
18. Angel
19. Dirty Diana (Michael Jackson)
20. In The Night
21. I Can’t Feel My Face
22. Prisoner
23. The Hills
24. Wicked Games

*With opener Travi$ Scott