The Weeknd Earned It At Made In America 2015: See The Pics & Setlist

Carl Williott | September 6, 2015 9:29 pm

Kiss Land never happened. That was the takeaway from The Weeknd‘s headlining set to close out Budweiser Made In America Festival on Sunday night (September 7). With a live band perched above him and a wall of lights behind him, Abel Tesfaye brought the massive Philadelphia crowd down through the murk and high above the clouds, leaning on the ominous haze of his debut mixtape House Of Balloons and the muscular pop swagger of new album Beauty Behind The Madness.

HoB opener “High For This” started things off and reassured any fans thinking he’d turn his back on his pre-fame days. After a string of three BBTM songs, he returned to signature cut “House Of Balloons/Glass Table Girls,” the second half of which was extended into a particularly sinister bass drone with incessant strobe lights. This was his coming out party as a major pop star, and here he was going full-on darkwave (he returned to that vibe for pre-encore closer “The Hills”).

The clouds split for a mid-set streak of radio fodder like his “Drunk In Love” remix and big features “Crew Love” and “Remember You.” By the time he got into “Love Me Harder,” it was hard to reconcile the fact that the same guy singing this teeny bopper anthem was just minutes prior playing air guitar and flicking his tongue through the lewd “Or Nah.” The most captivating thing about The Weeknd used to be his darkness, but now it’s his duality, the way he sought pop stardom and achieved it, but has shown absolutely no sign of censoring his earlier material — unless it’s concerning Kiss Land.

Check out the setlist below, and five photos from his show up top.

1. High For This 2. Losers 3. Tell Your Friends 4. Often 5. House Of Balloons/Glass Table Girls 6. Crew Love 7. Or Nah (Remix) 8. The Morning 9. Remember You 10. The Zone 11. Drunk In Love 12. Love Me Harder 13. Earned It 14. Prisoner 15. Can’t Feel My Face 16. The Hills Encore 17. Wicked Games