As the crowds made their way into Wembley Stadium for the fifth and final night of The Weeknd’s After Hours til Dawn Tour, a humanoid-looking alien took to the stage and immersed the audience in his dark and cinematic soundscape.
The elusive figure had people temporarily confused as they looked around and wondered: who is ? As soon as the synth-heavy beats flooded the stadium, bemusement turned into elation as the DJ let the music do the talking.
is a long-time collaborator of The Weeknd, having worked together since 2013 on songs such as ‘Die For You’ and ‘Until I Bleed Out’, as well as providing additional vocals on ‘Pretty’. All these years later, the French DJ is supporting The Weeknd as he reached a new career high in solo headline show attendance by performing to over 89,000 people.
The DJ opened the set with synth-wave tracks ‘All of Us’ and ‘Electronic Talk’, which played alongside immersive and cinematic visuals. It felt like the type of music you’d hear whilst driving through a retro-futuristic city at night in the pouring rain — Blade Runner-esque.
, Prince 85 played ‘Odd Look’ featuring The Weeknd — a remix which was included on the deluxe edition of “Kiss Land.” The live reimagining of the track added a gritty edge to the song, with big beat drops that echoed across the filled Wembley Stadium.
Despite the enjoyment from the crowd, it was also a moment which must have held emotional significance for Prince 85 as well, because Kavinsky’s final live appearance was alongside the DJ during The Weeknd’s show at Paris’ Stade de France in July earlier this year.
Reading the room and preparing the crowd for The Weeknd, Prince 85 performed the ‘Kiss Land’ fan favourite ‘Adaptation’. The live track was chopped and slowed down with distorted vocals, adding to the futuristic atmosphere that the DJ was creating with his set.
The performances of ‘Kiss Land’ songs continued into the headline performance as he sang a snippet of ‘Professional’. As he sang the lyrics, “What does it mean?”, he added fuel to the fire with his cryptic messages and the speculation around ‘Kiss Land 2’. Although nothing has been announced yet, in a 2017 interview with Zane Lowe, he admitted that ‘Kiss Land’ was the only record he could see himself revisiting, as there were further unfinished stories to tell. Could ‘Kiss Land 2’ be on the way?
As Prince 85 captured the attention of the audience, he started to play hit songs that he has produced or co-produced over the years. Don’t let the avant-garde performance art fool you; Prince 85 has worked with some of the biggest rappers in the world, such as , 21 Savage and .
A personal favourite of mine was ‘Annihilate’, a song from the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse soundtrack featuring Swae Lee, Lil Wayne and Offset. It was also produced by the dream team of , and , resulting in a dark and atmospheric track where the synths take centre stage and give the rappers the platform to shine and do their thing.
The track is inspired by the soundscape which Daniel Pemberton created for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. However, it also perfectly matches the cinematic and atmospheric mood of The Weeknd’s live shows, as he reimagined hit songs such as ‘Often’ with heavy synth arrangements alongside the synth god himself, Mike Dean.
In a final flurry of back-to-back hits, Prince 85 played ‘ATM’ by and ‘Always Be My Fault’ by , Metro Boomin and The Weeknd, setting the stage perfectly for the high-energy trap/rage rap which would bring shortly after to the Wembley stage.
As the alien left the stage, people were introduced to the weird and wonderful world of Prince 85. But who is he? Many people on social media speculate that the DJ is actually The Weeknd in disguise, as they’ve never been seen in the same room together.
