Daniel Caesar draws huge crowd for surprise Toronto park show

Hundreds, if not thousands, of excited fans packed Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park late Saturday afternoon for a free pop-up show by Grammy-Award winning R&B artist Daniel Caesar.

The Canadian singer/songwriter shared the news of his surprise performance on his Instagram page around 3 p.m., saying simply, “Toronto. Trinity Bellwoods. Five o’clock.”

Last Wednesday, Caesar announced on TikTok he’d be doing free pop-up tour for his upcoming fourth studio album, Son Of Spergy, with Toronto being the first stop.

During today’s concert, Caesar sang a couple unreleased tracks from that album, including one titled “Baby Blue.”

He performed the show sitting down while playing a guitar amplified by a few large speakers in the park’s dog bowl area.

Mustafa, a well-known Sudanese-Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, fillmaker and long-time Caesar collaborator, was also in attendance.

CP24 spoke with some of those there.

A.J., Arthika, and Naveen, who were in the city for the Ontario Universities Fair at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and said they rushed over to Trinity Bellwoods Park after seeing Caesar’s Instagram post.

“We just started running and we were here like three hours before (the show),” A.J. said.

Arthika said they hurried over the Trinity Bellwoods and began searching for where the concert would be happening.

“We got here at 3:50, about 30 minutes after his announcement. We were the first ones here,” she said.

Caesar, whose real name is Ashton Dumar Norwill Simmonds, originally hails from Scarborough.