hurry up tomorrow

The following story contains spoilers from Hurry Up Tomorrow.
Four months after The Weeknd released his Billboard 200-topping album Hurry Up Tomorrow, XO fans are finally able to watch the film that inspired its inception in theaters, starting Friday (May 16).
Directed by Trey Edward Shults, Hurry Up Tomorrow follows a fictional version of the superstar (also named Abel) who’s “plagued by insomnia” and “is pulled into an odyssey with a stranger who begins to unravel the very core of his existence,” according to the official synopsis. But what’s soundtracking his nightmarish journey digs even deeper into The Weeknd’s lore.
“Wake Me Up,” the Justice-featuring synth-pop album opener, also serves as the film’s opening “concert song.” The show The Weeknd performs at a that looks identical to the ones he held in Brazil and Australia last fall, where he wore a black and gold kaba — a hand-embroidered Ethiopian robe historically worn by royals and traditionally worn at weddings — and sang atop a rock-hewn church, resembling Lalibela, in the northern region of his motherland. He debuted “Wake Me Up” at his São Paulo show in September.
“We always wanted a performance song that we can open the film with, and in the vein of a pop record, and ‘Wake Me Up’ was the inspiration,” The Weeknd tells Billboard. He performs the song again at a different concert later in the film, where he ends up losing his voice – mimicking The Weeknd’s real-life experience at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium in September 2022, when he had to cut his concert short for the same reason. That incident, as well as The Weeknd’s sleep paralysis diagnosis, are key influences in Hurry Up Tomorrow.
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The film’s Oscar-winning sound designer Johnnie Burn says they remixed the first “Wake Me Up” performance in the film “35 times, trying to get the balance of how much crowd sound you would hear, how the music would come across. Are you hearing it from Abel’s perspective? We tried that. Are you hearing it from the audience’s perspective? No. Are you hearing it from a deeply psychological, emotional ride? Yeah, you are.”
Burn, who says he went from “dancing around my kitchen to Abel’s music” as a fan to “dancing around the mixing room” with the man himself, says the process involved everything from asking Mike Dean for “a new synth line that sounds a bit more live” to miking The Weeknd while he recorded new lyrics that better suited the storyline. When The Weeknd was changing up a few lyrics during the cutaways, “I said, ‘Well, you’re probably in quite an adrenaline state when you go out in front of 80,000 people.’ So I made him do push-ups to get kind of worked up,” Burn recalls with a chuckle. “He was like, ‘What, now?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, get down and give me 20.’”
Burn says the song that required the most fine-tuning was the cathartic centerpiece “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” which The Weeknd explains was inspired by the titular track from Robert Altman’s 1973 satirical noir film The Long Goodbye, because of how frequently it appears. “You hear it throughout the entire film, different iterations of it. You hear it on the radio, you hear a pop version of it, subjectively in the score, diegetically, a mariachi band will sing it every time he goes to Mexico. And I wanted to do that with ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow,’” he explains.
Abel first plays Anima (played by Jenna Ortega) a stripped-down draft of it off his phone in a hotel room. Moved to tears, Anima admits she relates to its autobiographical lyrics — because her father left when she was a kid, her mother struggled to raise her alone and she abandoned home to forge her own path that’s fraught with inescapable loneliness. The next morning, Abel turns around while sitting on the hotel bed and faintly hears Anima singing some of the first verse in the shower behind closed doors. He later encounters his younger self, who’s swaddled in a gabi, a white handwoven Ethiopian cotton blanket, and singing a few lines in Amharic, the primary language of Ethiopia. But after Anima douses him and the hotel bed he’s tied to with gasoline — and right as she holds a lighter above him — Abel belts an a cappella version that feels like he is literally singing for his life: “So burn me with your light/ I have no more fights left to win/ Tie me up to face it, I can’t run away, and/ I’ll accept that it’s the end.”
“You’re seeing the making of it, not literally me making it, but the themes and the concept and the melody and the soul of it is being made throughout the film. By the end of it, it’s fully blossomed into this song, which essentially is what the film is saying,” says The Weeknd, who adds that he had “to finish the lyrics the night before I had to perform it at the end.”
Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye as Abel and Writer/Director Trey Edward Shults in ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow.’
Andrew Cooper for Lionsgate
But outside of the Hurry Up Tomorrow tracks, fans will be surprised to hear two earlier songs from The Weeknd’s discography in the film: his 2021 blockbuster hit “Blinding Lights” – which is the top Billboard Hot 100 song of all time – and “Gasoline,” the first track from his 2022 album Dawn FM. Anima analyzes the emptiness and heartache in the songs as she hysterically lip-syncs and dances to them, and she later questions Abel if he’s the true toxic subject behind his music.
“What I am doing by the end of the film is, I’m lighting my persona up on fire. But to tap into that, you need to go into the back catalog a little bit, and take in what I’m saying in some of these lyrics and how they’re masked by pop elements,” he says. “It’s always been a joke that joke with The Weeknd music, where it makes you sing and dance and it feels jolly. And then when you actually get into the themes of it, it’s something much deeper — and maybe a call for help, who knows. That’s how [Anima’s] reading it, and essentially forcing myself to face myself.”
There are other callbacks to his catalog in the sound design. The guttural shrieks heard right after Anima swings a champagne bottle over Abel’s head and knocks him out when he first tries leaving the hotel room sound reminiscent of the title track of his 2013 debut studio album Kiss Land. The “Easter eggs,” as Burn calls them, extend beyond the film — as fans pointed out online that the ending of “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” which serves as the final track of The Weeknd’s album, seamlessly transitions into the beginning of “High For This,” the first track off his 2011 debut mixtape House of Balloons.
While Hurry Up Tomorrow bids farewell to the character Abel Tesfaye has played for over a decade, it also underscores the long-standing symbiotic relationship between music and film in The Weeknd’s world. “When you hear the screams in the record and you hear all these horror references and you feel scared, listen to the music — because I want you to feel what I’m feeling. Kiss Land is like a horror movie,” The Weeknd told Complex in his first-ever interview back in 2013.
“We wanted to do something we’ve never seen or heard on screen before,” he says now. “We were able to do these big swings, and I think they landed well in the film. I’m really proud of the music, and I’m proud of the sonics of it. It’s much different from the album. It’s like its own experience.”
The Weeknd is planning a unique kind of Coachella appearance during the festival’s second weekend. He announced on Wednesday (April 16) that he’s hosting a “ferris wheel takeover” from Friday to Sunday. “SEE YOU IN THE DESERT @coachella,” he wrote on Instagram underneath a poster promoting his upcoming psychological thriller film Hurry Up Tomorrow and featuring […]
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The Weeknd is heading back on tour.
Following the release of his recent album Hurry Up Tomorrow and a surprise performance at the Grammys, Abel has announced a 26-date North American stadium tour kicking off May 9. Presale tickets are already live and going fast on Ticketmaster with a general release opening up on Feb. 7. Secure tickets on other resale ticket sites, including StubHub, Vivid Seats, Seat Geek and Gametime.
The massive stadium tour will celebrate the finale of his trilogy of albums: After Hours, Dawn FM and Hurry Up Tomorrow. This also may be the final time he goes on tour under his The Weeknd name, as he’s expected to retire the persona. The tour will start May 9 at at State Farm Stadium in Phoenix and wrap up Sept. 3 at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Along the way, special guests Playboi Carti and Mike Dean will grace the stage at most dates.
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To accompany the album release and tour announcement, the Canadian R&B singer also dropped the trailer for an upcoming Hurry Up Tomorrow film that’s also releasing in May. The film will star The Weeknd alongside Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan. Directed by Trey Edward Shults, the film follows a musician who’s “plagued by insomnia” and “is pulled into an odyssey with a stranger who begins to unravel the very core of his existence,” according to the official synopsis.
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To grab tickets to The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn tour, check out our guide below.
How to Get Tickets to The Weeknd’s ‘After Hours Til Dawn’ Tour
Pre-sale tickets for the The Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn tour already went live on Feb. 5 on Ticketmaster. The general public will have their shot on Feb. 7 through Ticketmaster and other resale sites, including StubHub, Vivid Seats, Seat Geek and Gametime.
StubHub is offering tickets for as low as $76. Each purchase comes with the FanProtect Guarantee, which will keep your purchases protected. You can also use the interactive venue map to choose tickets based on price and seating section.
Another option is Vivid Seats, which has tickets for his tour for as low as $72. You can also save $20 off orders of $200+ when you use the code BB2024 at checkout. Each ticket purchase will be protected through the site’s Buyer Guarantee, which you can learn more about here.
SeatGeek currently has tickets starting at $77 and you can utilize the site’s deal rating scale to determine how good of a deal you’re getting. SeatGeek uses a 1-10 rating system with one being the worst deal and 10 being the best deal you can get. You can also save $10 off your ticket purchases of $250+ (offer valid on first purchases only) when you use the code BILLBOARD10.
For affordable early tickets, Gametime is offering ticket options for as low as $72. Purchases will receive the Gametime Guarantee, which includes event cancellation protection, a low price guarantee and one-time ticket delivery. Bonus offer: get $20 off orders of $150+ when you use the code SAVE20 at checkout.
The Weeknd doesn’t just perform—he curates experiences.
Hours before the release of Hurry Up Tomorrow, the Canadian artist made a striking appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, delivering a cinematic rendition of “Open Hearts” that blurred the line between live television and a full-scale production.
The performance opened in stark black and white, with Tesfaye cloaked in a shadowy robe, his glowing eyes creating an almost otherworldly presence. The stripped-back visuals felt deliberately unsettling, as if pulled from the surreal worlds of David Lynch, setting the tone for what was to come.
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As the song progressed, the atmosphere began to shift. The stage dissolved into an animated, stop-motion dreamscape, with jagged transitions and uncanny imagery. The performance balanced minimalism and surrealism, offering a glimpse into the darker, more introspective aesthetic underpinning Hurry Up Tomorrow.
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The surreal aesthetic has only heightened speculation that the upcoming Hurry Up Tomorrow film—arriving in theaters May 16—will explore similarly haunting and imaginative territory.
With Hurry Up Tomorrow now out via XO/Republic Records, the performance stands as a gateway into The Weeknd’s latest (and potentially final) chapter under his longtime moniker.
The album, which serves as the closing installment in his trilogy following After Hours (2020) and Dawn FM (2022), carries a deeply introspective tone. While it boasts high-profile collaborations like Playboi Carti (“Timeless”) (which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100) and Anitta (“São Paulo”), the most talked-about moment is Lana Del Rey’s uncredited feature on “The Abyss.”
Meanwhile, “Dancing in the Flames,” which was previously teased, was left off the final tracklist entirely, leaving fans speculating about its fate.
Originally scheduled for release on Jan. 24, the album was delayed as The Weeknd pledged $1 million to LA wildfire relief efforts, canceling a planned Rose Bowl album release concert in the process. Proceeds from the track “Take Me Back to LA” will also be donated to the LA Regional Food Bank, providing further aid to those affected.
As The Weeknd pivots toward his feature film debut in Hurry Up Tomorrow, directed by Trey Edward Shults and starring Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan, performances like his Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance suggest that his storytelling is only becoming more ambitious.
Whether or not this truly marks the end of The Weeknd, his ability to merge music and visual spectacle continues to evolve, making Hurry Up Tomorrow a fitting conclusion to this phase of his career.
In tandem with his live performance, The Weeknd has launched a series of events to further immerse fans in the world of Hurry Up Tomorrow.
In partnership with Spotify, the Hurry Up Tomorrow Pop-Up Experience will take place in New York City from Friday, Jan. 31, through Sunday, Feb. 2. This interactive art installation will transport fans into Tesfaye’s creative world, offering a glimpse into the final act of his acclaimed trilogy.
Meanwhile, specialty retailer Hot Topic is showcasing an expansive Hurry Up Tomorrow merchandise collection, including tees, hoodies, posters, and the highly anticipated The Weeknd x Frank Miller Hurry Up Tomorrow apparel capsule – available only in Las Vegas at the “takeover”.
From Jan. 31 to Feb. 2, the Downtown Summerlin Hot Topic store in Las Vegas will host a Hurry Up Tomorrow “takeover,” transforming the space into an exclusive retail experience.
Watch his performance on Jimmy Kimmel below.
The rollout for The Weeknd‘s Hurry Up Tomorrow album is well underway, as he announced Monday (Sept. 9) that lead single “Dancing in the Flames” will be released on Friday. The Weeknd performed “Dancing in the Flames” and more new Hurry Up Tomorrow tracks for the first time at his special one-night-only São Paulo, Brazil […]
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