Review: Justin Bieber at the Prudential Center

Some musicians seem to have the time of their lives when they're performing. But Justin Bieber doesn't appear to be one of them.

Patrick Dodson/Prudential Center

Justin Bieber performs a sold out concert at Prudential Center in Newark on Saturday, July 9, 2016.

The Prudential Center in Newark was packed with adoring fans for his concert there on Saturday night, and it was a visually impressive show, with dancers and acrobats, fireworks and lasers, dazzling video effects, a stage with many moving parts, and so on. But throughout the evening, Bieber, 22, was a stoic, almost unemotional presence in the midst of the celebration.

Most pop superstars work overtime to make sure their fans know they are having a good time. Bieber rarely even cracked a smile.

And this is a guy with a lot to smile about. Though he was involved in a lot of controversies between 2012 and 2014, his life has been pretty much scandal-free and hit-filled since then. His 2015 album "Purpose" has yielded three No. 1 singles ("What Do You Mean?," "Sorry" and "Love Yourself") and his Purpose World Tour -- which began in March and ends its United States leg with shows in Atlantic City, July 15, and New York, July 28-19 – has sold out every night, so far.

He still seems to have a chip on his shoulder, though. In Newark, he sang two of his biggest personal-message songs from "Purpose" – "Mark My Words" and "I'll Show You" – from inside a clear box; this was meant, perhaps, to symbolize the forces oppressing him. Yet there were moments of release, later, most notably in "Company," during which he did backflips on a trampoline, and in "Children," during which he brought children onstage to dance with him. For the show-closing "Sorry," Bieber and his dancers were drenched in artificial rain, and splashed around in an onstage pool created by it.

Bieber sat on a couch, strumming an acoustic guitar, for solo versions of "Home to Mama" and "Love Yourself," and took an extended drum solo late in the show (not bad, but nothing that any Jersey cover band drummer couldn't do). Throughout the evening, his backing musicians remained in the shadows, except for the guitar solo at the end of the song "Purpose," when they finally appeared in the spotlights and on the video screens.

Bieber didn't lip-sync, per se. But on many songs, he sang along to himself, on tape, so that he created the illusion that you were just hearing his live voice. This only worked when he was actually singing, though. At times, he would be dancing with the mic nowhere near his mouth, or he would be holding the mic up to the audience (basically, asking them to sing along) and you would hear his voice, so it obviously wasn't live.

He made no attempt to cover this up, so in that sense, he wasn't faking. But that doesn't mean it's artistically legitimate, in my book.

Also, some of his songs have guest vocalists – Halsey on "The Feeling," Travis Scott on "No Sense," Big Sean on "No Pressure" – and since these people weren't present, you'd hear their voices on tape, and watch them on the video screens, during these songs. And Bieber himself did less and less live singing as the night went on. On "What Do You Mean?" – one of the songs in the burst of hits at the end of the show-- he was singing less than half of the time.

I realize that many of Bieber's youngest fans couldn't care less, but for me, it's important that everything is live: That you have that sense of sharing a moment with a singer, directly, not having him dance around to something he did in a studio months ago.

Bieber clearly wants to be taken seriously: "Purpose" has pop fluff, but songs with sober, uplifting messages as well. He'd earn some of the maturity he's aiming for if he sang live -- and not just sometimes, but every note in every song.  

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