The last time The Weeknd was in town, during July of 2022 at Ford Field, he promised that the end of the night, “I’m gonna come back soon, Detroit. Next time we’ll do Ford Field two nights, back to back!”

And on Saturday, May 24 at the stadium, the multi-hyphenate Canadian entertainer made sure to acknowledge that the promise had been kept. “I said that, right?” The Weeknd crowed before performing his 2022 hit “Out of Time.”

That was, of course, just fine with the 45,000 or so fans — quite a few of whom had come from out of town and even out of the country to catch the nearly two-hour and 15-minute concert, ostensibly a continuation of The Weeknd’s After House Before Dawn Tour but with enough new elements to make it a fresh experience. (He performs again on Sunday, May 25.)

Much has happened, and not all good, since the Toronto native also known as Abel Tesfaye’s last appearance at Ford Field. His HBO series “The Idol,” was critically panned, while his feature film “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” which opened two weeks ago, has been a box office bomb (though trailers were shown between acts to remind the OOXO faithful that it’s still in some theaters). But the album companion to the latter, released at the end of January, was his fifth straight to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, giving him plenty of familiar fresh material to play on Saturday.

And he added plenty of new fare to the visual extravaganza, a dizzying and action-packed presentation on par with other groundbreaking stadium performances by the likes of Pink Floyd, U2, Madonna and, yes, even Taylor Swift and Beyonce.

Saturday’s show was even more stadium-filling (not to mention a half-hour longer) than its predecessor. The stage still stretched nearly the entire length of the Ford Field floor, with three distinct performance spaces as well as catwalks. To that The Weeknd added another section that crossed the stage in the middle, allowing him to get closer to fans on what would be the sidelines as he sang, often directly to the camera, through a series of large gold hoops. During “Out of Time” he came down to floor level, singing into fans’ phones and even letting a couple of them sing some of the song’s lines.

The backdrop of a post-apocalyptic Toronto on one side has crumbled since The Weeknd’s last stop, opening up more space for the huge video screen behind it and making his four-piece band — including artist-producer Mike Dean, who opened the evening with his own half-hour set — more readily visible. A rotating gold Sorayama statue with lighted eyes sat in the center of all this, and The Weeknd deployed lasers and fire effects — the latter prodigiously during “The Hills” and “Sao Paulo” — throughout the night.

Also back was an enlarged corps of masked, red-cloaked extras — 32, up from 24 three years ago — that walked and posed in formation during about a third of the more than three-dozen songs, occasionally breaking into poses and dance moves. And glittering hand-out bracelets The Weeknd used last time, as well, kept Ford Fields sparkling throughout the show.

Amidst all this, however, The Weeknd was still the star of the night, in good voice and even better mood as he continually teased the crowd — “Detroit, are you warmed up yet?” he asked several times — but also sang his gratitude for its support, also on several occasions. He offered up 11 songs from “Hurry Up Tomorrow” — including the opening dramatic couplet of “The Abyss” and “After Hours” and the live debut of “Reflections Laughing.” The show also brought “The Morning” back into the set after a two-year absence, while Playboi Carti — whose 40-minute opening set had enough energy to power the Movement festival down at Hart Plaza — joined for romps through The Weeknd’s “Timeless” and his own “Rather Lie.”

And there were plenty of hits, ranging from shortened versions of “After Hours,” “Starboy” and “Kiss Land” to full-length and even extended stadium-banging renditions of “Can’t Feel My Face,” “Call out My Name,” “Less Than Zero” and “Blinding Lights.” “Sacrifice” and the show-closing “Moth to a Flame,” meanwhile, were delivered ala the remixes done by Swedish House Mafia.

The latter was also accompanied by a barrage of grand finale visual effects to send fans home dancing, singing and perhaps a little (temporarily) hearing empaired. The Weeknd — who has talked about dumping that stage name in the near future — said nothing about coming back for three nights at Ford Field, but it’s likely that anyone at Saturday’s show, even the world travelers, would be happy to return and see what new he could cook up for that.

Tickets still remain for The Weeknd’s concert at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 25 2000 Brush St., Detroit. 313-262-2008 or fordfield.com.

The Big Ass Stadium Tour certainly lived up to its name on Sunday night, May 18, at Detroit`s Ford Field — even above and beyond Post Malone’s plus-sized headlining set.

The night’s headline was actually made by support act Jelly Roll, and hometown hero Eminem. The Tennessee singer and rapper declared Detroit his “second home” early during his fourth Detroit performance in 13 months, including at the Michigan Central Open concert last June and his own headline date at Little Caesars Arena in November. As usual he paid tribute to favorite singer-songwriter Bob Seger (“The GOAT”) with a bit of his “Old Time Rock and Roll,” and his rendition of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” later in Jelly Roll’s hour-long performance appeared to be another homage — until the Detroit rapper came swaggering out during the second verse, prompting a response from the more than 46,000 fans that was as loud as a Detroit Lions’ touchdown (or Eminem’s July 13, 2025 surprise appearance with Ed Sheeran at the stadium).

Eminem bestowed greetings and left with a hearty, “I love y’all. Peace!,” after which Jelly Roll — who guests on Eminem’s latest album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), and also joined Slim Shady and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on “Sing For the Moment” at the Michigan Central concert last June — gushed “that was a childhood dream come true.” Jelly Roll incorporated an Eminem Mom’s Spaghetti sign and the rapper’s reverse-E logo into his visuals for the occasion and also shouted out Eminem’s manage and Detroit native Paul Rosenberg for his support of his career.

That — along with anthems such as “Son of a Sinner,” “I Am Not Okay” and “Save Me — certainly threw down gauntlet for Malone, who answered with a diverse and, yes, big-ass two hours that spotlighted the unlikely, genre-hopping career the Texas-raised artist has pursued since his hip-hop beginnings just under a decade ago.

It would certainly have been hard to imagine that the Malone who performed as part of the Monster Energy Outbreak package during 2016 at the Fillmore Detroit would wind up fronting a version of Nirvana and topping the Alterative Rock (with 2023’s “Austin”) and Country (with last year’s “F-1 Trillion”) charts. But Malone has, and Sunday’s 26-song show certainly celebrated that latter ascent, from the country-style tailgate party outside Ford Field during the afternoon to the makeup of the crowd inside, the giant cowboy and cowgirl neon sculptures flanking the stage, the decidedly 10-gallon country opening acts (Chandler Walters and hoop-skirt sporting Sierra Ferrell) and even Malone’s honky-tonk worthy belt buckle and frequent swigging (of beers he ordered up from a crew member named Pat) from red Solo cups.

His brand of country has a swagger of its own, however, which Malone — in a long-sleeved Bob Dylan 1978 tour T-shirt and very tight jeans — exercised as he loped along a runway that stretched to the middle of the stadium floor and another ramp that took him to floor level on the right side of the audience, frequently flashing his metallic, diamond-encrusted smile. And while it took him nine songs in to get into “F-1” mode — with “Losers” and Jelly Roll coming back to recreate their duet on the album — Malone and his band delivered a generous half of its 18 tracks, back-ending the show with spirited roll through the likes of “Finer Things,” “Pour Me a Drink,” “Dead at the Honky Tonk” and the buoyant “I Had Some Help.” He also threw in “I Ain`t Comin’ Back,” his new collaboration with Morgan Wallen from the latter’s new album.

Much of Malone’s older material — “Wow.,” “Go Flex,” “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” “White Iverson,” “rockstar,” “Sunflower” and more — took on slightly different flavors in the context of the show, but he gave his hip-hop roots props, too, bringing on Houston rapper BigXThePlug for a rendition of his “Texas.” And Malone picked up an acoustic guitar (and lit a cigarette) for a solo acoustic rendering of “Feeling Whitney” followed by the tour debut of “Yours,” an “F-1…” song about his daughter, who he said was about to turn three years old.

Malone, whose father was a concessions manager for the Dallas Cowboys, poked at Lions fans during his show, playfully acknowledging the team as “the second best” in the NFL — even though the Lions beat the Cowboys 47-9 last October — before admitting to rooting for them after his team faltered.

The show was visually Big Ass too, of course, with a Fourth of July fireworks (from the get-go, during the opening “Texas Tea”) an abundance of fire and an elaborate video presentation with screens positioned throughout the stadium. Malone saved his best stunt for the very end, singing “Congratulations” in an elevated cage of light at the back of the floor; it should have been positioned earlier, however, as a great many fans began exiting after “Sunflower,” while the band jammed as Malone worked his way to the prop.

Nevertheless, you’d be hard-pressed not to be impressed with the stylistic breadth of Malone’s musicality and his aw-shucks genuineness that, 13-letter epithets aside, owes more to country than any of the other genres he dipped into. “Congratulations” were certainly in order.