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The Weeknd shades Rogers, calls for SkyDome to come back

He's just like us, fr fr

The Weeknd SkyDome

The Weeknd wants the Rogers Centre to go back to its old name of “SkyDome.”

The Scarborough-born Blinding Lights singer called for the re-renaming during his July 27 After Hours Til Dawn concert at the Toronto venue.

“Is there any way to call this place the SkyDome again?” he mused. “We gotta call Mr. Rogers or whoever owns this place. We gotta call this b**ch the SkyDome again,” he said during his set.

He then asked concert-goers if they agreed with him, which was met with loud cheers. “Alright, those are all official petition signatures. That’s 40,000 signatures right now,” he said with a laugh.

The SkyDome opened in 1989 and was rebranded as the “Rogers Centre” in 2005 after its acquisition by the eponymous telecom giant. But the Weeknd, like many of us, clearly has nostalgia for the old SkyDome moniker. During his set, he even stopped to look out at Toronto and reflect on how far he’s come, noting that he used to attend Blue Jays games in that same arena as a kid.

In fact, the Canadian artist repeatedly referred to the venue as “SkyDome,” as noted by Exclaim!, while also name-dropping “Toronto” many times and even slightly changing the lyrics of “Die for You” to directly address the city itself.

The Weeknd performed two shows on July 27 and 28, a period the City of Toronto dubbed “The Weeknd Weekend” alongside honouring him with a key to the city. The City specifically cited his local charitable work with the Boys & Girls Club of West Scarborough and Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute as some of the reasons for the distinction.

The Weeknd will return to the Rogers Centre for two more shows on August 7 and 8. The first two concerts seemed to go well — hopefully, there’s no big Rogers outage to cancel the next two.

Image credit: The Weeknd/Rogers

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