For a guy who wasn't even doing shows two and a half years ago, he's developed in to quite the showman, knowing exactly how to play the crowd without it coming off as forced or corny.
As for that mature-content warning, well, that was just a fancy way of letting people know he was going to sing the back half of "Kiss Land" in front of a bunch of monitors displaying two girls getting more than a little friendly with each other. The song itself ends with the repeated line, "this is nothing to relate to." He's right of course; very few of us live in Kiss Land, for better or worse.
Personal Bias: I'm digging Kiss Land way more than Nothing Was The Same, and I'm a pretty big Drake stan.
The Crowd: Lots of dresses and skirts, weed smoke, and couples acting couple-y. What I feel is an inordinate amount of folks left before the encore. I know it was 10:20 on a school night, but you could have sat through one more song.
Overheard In the Crowd: "Put it behind your ass. Yeah, like that," said a girl to her friend, giving her advice on how to dance. That was an awkward line to catch out of context at a The Weeknd show.
So How was the Opener?: Banks is hard for me to put a finger on. She moves around the stage like a seasoned pro, but when she's just standing behind the mike she's kind of cold. Her music isn't bad, but she could work on her projection a bit.
I do feel the person that yelled at her to "shut up" was overreacting a bit, but after her Lauryn Hill cover the crowd basically checked out. The set went on about ten minutes too long and the room was a bit too big for her. Also, she does this weird thing where she does squats while spinning in a circle. Our photog told me that everyone needs a special move, but I'm not sure that's the right one.
Random Notebook Dump: Is it possible to write 800 words on The Weeknd without using the word "sex" or "fuck"? Let's find out!
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