Why The Weeknd Stopped His Sold-Out Los Angeles Concert After 15 Minutes
Andy Warhol once decreed that everyone would have 15 minutes of fame in the future (via NPR). However, sadly for fans, everyone only had 15 minutes of music from The Weeknd on September 4. The Candian, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, left concertgoers in the lurch after pulling the plug on his performance after only three songs. It's not the first time Tesfaye has disappointed his devotees, though. He was set to kick off a world tour in January, but then decided to push it back by months.
"The tour dates are moving and will commence in the summer of 2022," Tesfaye announced in a statement (via Capital FM). "Due to constraints of arenas and the demand for more shows, I want to do something bigger and special for you which requires stadiums." He assured that ticket-holders would immediately get a refund and be first in line to purchase others once he announced the new dates. However, according to Billboard, on the night that the rescheduled "After Hours Til Dawn" tour was set to kick off, it was postponed again — this time because of a wireless network outage.
"I'm crushed & heartbroken," The Weeknd wrote in an Instagram Story (via Variety). "This one hurts the most, and we will make this show happen, but unfortunately not tonight," he continued. Yet, while some California fans saw The Weeknd perform at Coachella in April, others weren't so lucky as he stopped his sold-out Los Angeles concert after just 15 minutes on September 3. Although, there was a good reason why.
The Weeknd couldn't give the concert he wanted to
Abel Tesfaye has had a bumpy ride in 2022. The Weeknd reached a huge milestone in January, which left him grinning from ear to ear (and resulted in one-upping his arch-nemesis Justin Bieber). Per Entertainment Weekly, the singer pushed Biebs off the Spotify streaming top spot after surpassing 85.6 million monthly listeners. The Weeknd was still riding high at Coachella in April and earning rave reviews. Variety praised him for managing to put his performance together in just two weeks after Kanye "Ye" West pulled out at the last minute.
"He did not disappoint during the tag-team, co-headlining, festival-closing set late Sunday night," they wrote. However, what goes up must come down. The Weeknd suffered a significant blow in July when technical issues led to another postponement of his already postponed tour. Then came another downer.
Yahoo! reported The Weeknd had to end his L.A. concert 15 minutes into the sell-out show on September 3. The mic drop occurred midway through his fourth song, around 9:40 p.m. The crowd of 70,000 fans was left dazed and confused, initially thinking it was part of the act, until The Weeknd began a heartfelt apology and explanation. "I don't know what just happened when I screamed, but I just lost my voice," he said. "This is killing me. I don't want to stop the show. But I can't give you the concert I want to give you right now." Let's hope he can soon.