The Weeknd’s stadium-sized dystopian cyber-pop space opera leaves Singapore in awe
From a whopping 39-song setlist to a giant 12-metre golden robot, the sold-out show was a spectacular, futuristic sprint through his vast catalogue
[SINGAPORE] For a singer who built his career on nocturnal pleasures, there was something fitting about The Weeknd finally taking over Singapore’s National Stadium after dark last Friday (Oct 2) for the first of two sold-out shows.
Eight years after his last Singapore concert at the Indoor Stadium, Abel Tesfaye returned to the Lion City with a gigantic, dystopian pop spectacle as part of the Asian leg of his global After Hours Till Dawn tour.
More a post-apocalyptic cyber-pop space opera than a standard concert, the show opened with Tesfaye spending roughly the first 30 minutes in a laser-shooting mask. Dressed in SWAT tactical gear, he appeared as a lone figure, seemingly searching for something or someone.
When he finally removed the mask and greeted the audience for the first time, the moment felt almost like salvation. The man who had spent the opening act looking like a survivor separated from his unit had finally found his people.
From there, the concert opened up into a spectacular sprint through The Weeknd’s increasingly vast catalogue.
The 39-song set was massive, partly because the After Hours Till Dawn tour has grown far beyond what it was originally conceived to be.
What began around the releases of After Hours (2020) and Dawn FM (2022) now also encompasses Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025), alongside more than a decade of older music. The reward was hearing many of your favourite Weeknd songs; the frustration was not necessarily hearing them in full.
Wake Me Up, Starboy, Heartless, Faith, The Hills, Wicked Games, Call Out My Name, and Blinding Lights all made the setlist, though several were shortened or stitched together.
But there was also a glimpse of what may come next, as Tesfaye has said he is retiring The Weeknd moniker after this tour ends in Kuala Lumpur in about a month.
An untitled, upbeat dance track that fans have dubbed Tokyo after its live debut in Japan last month segued directly into Can’t Feel My Face, creating one of the night’s most seamless transitions.
The show’s most striking presence was the 12-metre golden Sexy Robot, designed by Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama.
It swivelled to follow Tesfaye wherever he went, making it an unlikely but ingenious guide for a stadium audience. The stage was enormous, but by simply following the robot’s gaze, you knew exactly where The Weeknd was in the National Stadium.
That distance, however, was also part of the After Hours Till Dawn drama. Back in 2018, The Weeknd was a mysterious figure emerging from the shadows on stage at the Indoor Stadium just a stone’s throw away.
On Friday night, he was still the lone wolf dressed in black who could be hard to make out depending on where you were seated. But this time, he had an entire stadium of 55,000 fans tracking his every move.
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