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MusicRadar
MusicRadar
Entertainment
Ben Rogerson

“I drove everyone crazy with it because I was the only one who noticed at first, but once I pointed it out we all heard it and wanted it gone”: The curious case of The Weeknd’s mic distortion, and how his live sound team fixed it

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - AUGUST 21: The Weeknd performs during The Weeknd: After Hours Til Dawn Tour at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on August 21, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Prince Williams/WireImage).

As the Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye has gone from underground alt-R&B artist to one of the biggest pop stars in the world, which means that his recent After Hours Til Dawn tour saw him filling stadiums rather than the smaller venues he started in.

A job well done, then, but it turns out that there was one unwanted technical side effect of the shows getting bigger, and it was down to The Weeknd’s live sound team - front of house engineer Derek Brener, monitor engineer Lewis Lowder, and RF technician Diego Correa - to solve it.

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