“This one hurts the most”

The Weeknd was forced to postpone his opening hometown show in Toronto last night (July 8).

• READ MORE: The Weeknd – ‘Dawn FM’ review: soulful star meets a new day with hope and hindsight

It came after nationwide outage of Canada’s main telecommunications company, Rogers, which disrupted phone and internet use across all of the country.

“This one hurts the most, and we will make this show happen, but unfortunately not tonight,” The Weeknd, real name Abel Tesfaye, wrote in a statement.

He added: “I’m crushed & heartbroken. Been at the venue all day but it’s out of my hands because of the Rogers outage. Operations and safety are compromised and I tried  my absolute best.

“This one hurts the most, and we will make this show happen, but unfortunately not tonight. I know how long you’ve been waiting and how hard a lot of you worked to make it to the show and experience this special moment with me. I can’t wait to see you all.”

A new date for Toronto has not yet been announced.

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— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) July 8, 2022

Earlier this week, The Weeknd announced new support acts for his upcoming North American stadium concerts – dubbed the ‘After Hours Til Dawn’ tour – after Doja Cat was forced to pull out.

Back in May, Doja Cat announced that she was to cancel all her 2022 live dates, including festival shows and the tour with The Weeknd, to recover from tonsil surgery.

The tour will now see support on select dates from Snoh Aalegra, Kaytranada and Mike Dean.

‘After Hours Til Dawn’ will take The Weeknd next to Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and more.

See the full list of dates below.

JULY
Wednesday 8 – Toronto, Rogers Centre
Tuesday 14 – Philadelphia, Lincoln Financial Field
Thursday 16 – New York, Metlife Stadium
Tuesday 21 – Boston, Gillette Stadium
Friday 24 – Chicago, Soldier Field
Monday 27  – Detroit, Ford Field
Thursday 30 – Washington, FedExField Thursday

AUGUST
Thursday 4 – Tampa, Raymond James Stadium
Saturday 6 – Miami, Hard Rock Stadium
Thursday 11 – Atlanta, Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Sunday 14 – Arlington, AT&T Stadium
Thursday 18 – Denver, Empower Field at Mile High
Saturday 20 – Las Vegas, Allegiant Stadium
Tuesday 23 – Vancouver, BC Place
Thursday 25 – Seattle, Lumen Field
Saturday 27 – San Francisco, Levi’s Stadium
Tuesday 30 – Phoenix, State Farm Stadium

SEPTEMBER
Friday 2 – Los Angeles, SoFi Stadium

According to a press release, the North American dates are just the first leg in a world tour that will also includes stops in Mexico, South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa and the Middle East which are yet to be announced.

The Weeknd’s latest album, ‘Dawn FM’, arrived back in January of this year. In a four-star review, NME said the follow-up to 2020’s ‘After Hours’ “feels like the first steps on a journey for The Weeknd to find peace with himself; perhaps next time we hear from him, he’ll be fully embracing the light of day”.