Daniel Caesar Performed a Surprise Concert for Thousands in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park — and He’s Doing It Again in Montreal

Daniel Caesar is showing love to his hometown.

Late Saturday afternoon (September 27), the Grammy-winning R&B artist performed a surprise concert for thousands of fans in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park.

Cesar announced the pop-up performance on his Instagram page yesterday around 3 p.m., saying: “Toronto. Trinity Bellwoods. Five o’clock.”

Earlier, Caesar posted a video on TikTok sharing that he’d be doing free pop-up shows in support of his upcoming album, Son Of Spergy.

“I’m going on tour, but it's going to be like a surprise pop-up in the cities tour, starting in Toronto, cause that’s home,” he teased last week.

During the concert, fans flocked to the park to see Caesar sing a handful of unreleased tracks from Son Of Spergy, including “Baby Blue”, “Root of All Evil, “Who Knows” and “Moon” — which he debuted at the Billboard Canada THE STAGE at NXNE Mod Club show in June.

Alongside the new material, the nine-track setlist featured some of his biggest hits like “Best Part,” “Always” and “Japanese Denim.” Most fittingly, he performed "Toronto 2014," his song with local singer-songwriter and long-time collaborator, Mustafa.

Caesar performed sitting down and played a guitar amplified by a few large speakers in the park’s dog bowl area, while Mustafa sat alongside him during the impromptu show.

In his recent exclusive Billboard and Billboard Canada cover story, Caesar talked about his love of playing these less formal pop-up shows with his collaborator, Mustafa.

"It’s really not even for the fans. It’s for us on the stage,” Caesar said. “We get to talk and figure out our ideas in public. It contributes to figuring out who we are and what we want to write about.”

Despite the massive crowd, the event didn't cause any problems and Toronto police were aware of the concert and monitored it, Constable Stephanie Miceli, a spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service, told CBC News.

Caesar has an affinity for the Toronto park. On his sophomore album, Pilgrim’s Paradise, there’s a 30-second intro interlude, titled “Trinity Bellwoods,” which features ambient sounds of birds, dogs and bikes.

A decade ago, he performed an acoustic set at Trinity Bellwoods to a much smaller group of about 40 fans. Yesterday, Mustafa asked how it felt to be there again, and Caesar told the large number of attendees, this was “entirely different.”

“It was just a bunch of us sitting in the grass,” he recalled. "It was very simple, and everyone could hear each other, and we weren’t all falling over each other. But it is a nice problem to have.”

He's not done yet. This afternoon (September 28), Caesar announced another last-minute pop-up for tonight. The show takes place at Parc des Hirondelles in Montreal at 6 p.m. ET. "Be there or be square," he said.

"Ahhhh here we go again," Mustafa wrote in the comments.