the weeknd san antonio
The Weeknd in San Antonio: A Global Pop Ritual in the Shadow of Collapse
Dave’s Locker International, filed from somewhere between the Alamo and TikTok
San Antonio—where the ghosts of 1836 mingle with vape smoke and the faint smell of churros—played host this week to Abel Tesfaye, the Canadian R&B warlock who answers to “The Weeknd.” On paper it was merely another stop on the After Hours til Dawn Tour, a continent-spanning carnival of LED crucifixes, pyro, and the sort of falsetto that makes grown men cry into their $17 Modelos. In practice, it was a planetary séance disguised as a pop concert, beamed in real time to Lagos living rooms, Mumbai call centers, and Scandinavian dormitories where the sun refuses to rise.
Globalization, that old drunk, staggered into the Alamodome wearing sequins and a surgical mask. Seventeen national flags fluttered from the rafters, most of them representing countries whose citizens couldn’t actually name San Antonio on a map but knew every lyric to “Blinding Lights” from a Netflix montage. Somewhere near Section 212, a Berlin tech bro live-tweeted the set in three languages while simultaneously shorting the euro. Humanity: multitasking itself into oblivion since 2008.
Security, naturally, was tight enough to make NATO blush. Bomb-sniffing dogs wore little Kevlar booties; concession workers were briefed on spotting fentanyl-laced nachos. The whole spectacle could have doubled as a training video for aspiring dystopias: facial-recognition cameras, QR-code chastity belts, and a soundtrack of existential dread you could dance to. Somewhere in a fluorescent war room, a Pentagon intern probably filed the crowd-density heat map under “soft-target rehearsal data.”
Economically, the evening was a masterclass in late-stage capitalism’s favorite magic trick: turning nostalgia into liquidity. Tickets that retailed for $99 months ago now changed hands for the price of a decent used Honda Civic. Scalpers operated out of idling Teslas, their algorithms humming louder than the subwoofers. Inside, fans shelled out $45 for a T-shirt manufactured in Bangladesh, where the monthly garment-worker wage equals roughly four domestic beers here. The shirt reads “Save Your Tears.” Irony died; no one noticed because the beat dropped.
Politically, the show arrived like a glittery diplomatic cable. Texas Republicans, fresh from banning books and uteruses alike, discovered that The Weeknd’s bass line is as effective as any lobbyist at loosening donor wallets. Meanwhile, Mexico’s foreign ministry quietly noted the demographic—bilingual Gen-Z kids belting “Starboy” while FaceTiming cousins in Monterrey—and updated its soft-power forecast accordingly. Somewhere in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau practiced his concerned eyebrow arch, praying Abel wouldn’t mention the pipeline.
Culturally, the performance was less a concert than a mass confession. Sixty-five thousand souls howled along to tales of cocaine heartbreak and 5 a.m. solitude, as if admitting our collective ruin could somehow exorcise it. The stage design featured a burning cityscape—very subtle—while Abel crooned “I can’t feel my face” against footage of melting glaciers. Climate change as background dancer: now that’s commitment to metaphor. A Japanese journalist turned to me and asked, deadpan, “Is this what the end of empire sounds like?” I told him only if the empire has really good sub-bass.
By encore time, the global feed showed satellite delay tears from Manila to Marseille. A Ukrainian soldier posted a 15-second clip captioned “last song before rotation,” the distant thud of artillery syncing eerily with the kick drum. Somewhere in Silicon Valley, a product manager updated the intern onboarding deck: “Lesson 4—Leverage parasocial grief for retention.”
And then it ended. House lights up, Uber surge pricing activated, confetti vacuumed into plastic bags destined for a landfill that will outlast the pyramids. Outside, the River Walk still glistened like a simulation of itself, and the Alamo stood stoically, wondering how it became a backdrop for TikTok thirst traps. The Weeknd had left the building; the world kept scrolling.
Tomorrow we’ll wake up, check the market futures, and queue the next distraction. But for one humid Thursday in South Texas, we proved that even as the planet smolders, nothing unites us quite like a four-chord chorus and the shared delusion that the drop will save us.
