Justin Bieber performs at Allstate Arena on April 22, 2016 in Rosemont, Ill.
If Justin Bieber can't even climb a tree in a public park for fun without getting attacked and ridiculed by the media, then how can a young man/superstar under a perpetual spotlight have some fun? He makes it part of his live production, that's how.
On his current Purpose World Tour, which made its first of two sold-out stops at Toronto's Air Canada Centre last night (the closest "hometown" show to his birthplace of London, Ontario and childhood home of Stratford), the singer has a well-designed funhouse of a stage, complete with a trampoline, conveyor belt, splash pool, water wall, ramps, trap doors, hydraulic risers, lasers, strobes, aerial performers, acrobatic dancers, and other assorted effects.
But there were also cages/boxes -- cages/boxes that Bieber appeared inside and retreated to to sing. Symbolic? Bieber has been making it known recently that that is how fame is making him feel: he posted on Instagram May 10 that he is "done taking pictures" with people who encounter him in public. "I feel like a zoo animal and I wanna be able to keep my sanity."
So here you have a 22-year-old halfway through a tour (it ends late November at The O2 Arena in London, England) behind his fourth studio album, Purpose, already feeling stressed and ready for a break. Other guys his age are probably backpacking around Europe wondering what to do with their Bachelor of Arts degree and if they'll get a job. Bieber has sold 100 million albums globally, almost 45 million in the US alone. Let that sink in. The Purpose Tour has already earned over $40 million.
The crowd -- 14,600 strong who still shriek and scream even when the Biebs does nothing but walk -- ate up everything and had a blast, on their feet, singing and dancing right from the opener "Mark My Words" which he sang inside a hydraulic plexiglass cube. Wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs Jersey with his name and the number 6 (the Drake-spurred nickname for Toronto) on the back, he joined his dance crew for Jack Ü's "Where Are Ü Now," and then launched into the pumping "Get Used to It," punctuated by some pyro, always a fun addition.
For "I'll Show You" – which opens with the lines "my life is a movie and everyone's watching/So let's get to the good part and past all the nonsense" — the crowd yelled every word along with him, as if to say they understood exactly what he's going through.
While it was sometimes hard to locate Bieber onstage with all the dancers and the trap door vanishing acts, after "Boyfriend," he took some downtime on a pink settee at the front of the stage, picked up the acoustic guitar and sang the unreleased beauty "Look At The Stars" and smash anthem "Love Yourself," for which he again had 14,000-plus backing vocalists. Towards the end, he stood up and finished a cappella, holding out the mic for crowd to sing the last lines.
The smiles came out at a few points, for "Children," much later in the hour and 45-minute set when he bought out some tiny stellar dancers and sweetly asked each of them their names afterwards. He also had a blast pummeling away on his drum kit high above the crowd for a solo; and obviously when he got to jump and flip on the trampoline, also elevated near the rafters, and end the night with "Sorry" by jumping with his dance crew in a wading pool and getting soaked under a water curtain.
"Find your purpose," he told everyone before leaving. "Be yourself." He obviously is and is getting judged for it. I'd say he's accomplished more in his 22 years than we will in a lifetime. That should be praised. Who cares if he wants to climb a tree. Don't we all?
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