The 2016 Billboard Music Awards took place yesterday (May 22nd 2016) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, with Canadian singer The Weeknd taking home no less than eight gongs for his work over the past year. Adele also won big, though her five accolades were meagre compared to her R&B counterpart.

The WeekndThe Weeknd takes home eight awards

The Weeknd - real name Abel Makkonen Tesfaye - landed almost more awards than he could carry. The prizes for Top Hot 100 Artist, Song Sales Artist, Radio Songs Artist, Streaming Songs Artist and Top R&B Artist were all presented to him, as was the Top R&B Song and Streaming Song for his number one platinum single 'The Hills' and the Top R&B Album for his second album 'Beauty Behind the Madness' released last year.

Adele, meanwhile, earned the coveted Top Artist award, as well as Top Female Artist and Top Billboard 200 Artist, with her album '25' named as Top Billboard 200 Album and her much-loved song 'Hello' as Top Selling Song. She also premiered a brand new music video for the '25' song 'Send My Love (To Your New Lover)', which featured the singer in a sensational Dolce & Gabbana floral dress.

More: Read our review of Adele's '25'

Further big winners included Justin Bieber (Top Male Artist and Social Media Artist) who also performed his songs 'Company' and 'Sorry', Wiz Khalifa's song 'See You Again' featuring Charlie Puth (Top Hot 100 Song and Rap Song), Walk the Moon's rock epic 'Shut Up and Dance' (Top Radio Song and Rock Song) and twenty one pilots (Top Rock Artist and Rock Album for 'Blurryface'.

Other artists who managed to scoop an accolade were Top New Artist Fetty Wap, Top Group One Direction, Top Touring Artist Taylor Swift, Top Rap Artist Drake, Top Dance Album 'True Colors' composer Zedd and Rihanna who was voted by fans to be honoured with the Billboard Chart Achievement Award.

KeshaKesha performs sensational Bob Dylan cover

Though speaking of Zedd, his latest collaborator Kesha got her big performance at the Billboard Music Awards after all, doing a sensational cover of Bob Dylan's 'It Ain't Me, Babe' accompanied by pianist Ben Folds. Given her current legal troubles, she may not be winning awards for making music right now, but her standing ovation was worth a thousand gongs.

If that didn't incite a few tears, then Stevie Wonder's surprise rendition of 'Purple Rain' by the late superstar Prince would've; indeed, so would Madonna's cover of 'Nothing Compares 2 U'. Celine Dion's tribute to late husband René Angélil was equally special, crooning a meaningful version of Queen's 'The Show Must Go On'.