The Weeknd thrills Nashville with theatrics, pyro, & beyond

This past week in Nashville was my first chance shooting at an NFL stadium. Last year, I photographed Green Day at GEODIS Park in Nashville, but that stadium only has a capacity of around 25,000. This past Tuesday, I shot at Nissan Stadium — home to the Tennessee Titans — which holds around 70,000.

It’s not every day I can say that I photographed the number two artist in the world… a man who was the first to reach one billion song streams and who also holds the record for the most songs with one billion streams to date.

I am talking, of course, about The Weeknd.

For this particular article, I want to take the reader on a different kind of journey. Naturally, I’ll talk about the show, the production, and the music, but I also want to give people a peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to be a concert photographer. While I absolutely love my job and the ability to shoot massive artists, it doesn’t come without its pitfalls.

The first thing I think people don’t realize is that shooting big shows often means a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’. Once you arrive at the stadium, you rush to get there at a specific time, go through security, get your photo pass, get escorted down to the stage, and then you wait for the artist to begin. In this case, the first performer was Mike Dean and it felt like an eternity for him to start.

Mike Dean, also The Weeknd’s guitar player, opened with a set that was mostly electronic instrumentation — a mix of live guitar playing and EDM. It felt more like background sound to keep energy flowing while fans filtered into the stadium.

Next up was rapper Playboi Carti.

Now, he wasn’t wanting photography. Because of this, all of us were escorted back to the security entrance, unable to see his performance at all. From what my friends at the show told me, Playboi Carti‘s set was really good. 

At 930pm, I got to rejoin the show and was brought down on the field for the one, the only, The Weeknd. He opened up his set with a large group of women in red robes and golden masks surrounding him; it was visually stunning, to say the least. Around the 10th song, The Weeknd took his mask off, spurring fireworks and intense visuals for the remainder of the show.

Honestly, the Weeknd’s whole performance was absolutely incredible.

He had more pyrotechnics, lasers, fireworks, and LED screens than any artist I’ve ever seen. It was probably the most well-produced show of my life! People were going absolutely wild… the screams from the women in the audience were so loud, they left my ears ringing for days.

Most people stood up dancing the whole show, which — to a person of my age — seemed quite difficult, considering the temperature outside was well over 90 degrees. But they persisted anyway! This was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and, if I ever get the opportunity again, I’ll definitely be there to watch The Weeknd live again.

Photography by Derek Jones

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