Like his contemporaries One Direction, Justin Bieber managed to amass global fame and fortune as a pop star without his hits journeying far beyond his fanbase. As he awkwardly emerged from the floppy-haired tween YouTube star phase to negotiate a more “adult” space in the music industry, Bieber’s career has been plagued with episodes of petulance and legal troubles that often have a flavour of boarding-school-antics about them (public urination, having a pet monkey quarantined in Europe, allegedly egging a neighbour’s house), eliciting eye-rolling rather than jail time.
While Bieber's transition into adulthood may have been troubled personally, creativity he has excelled. Yet now all tattoos, Hood-By-Air threads, Kanye West endorsements (Kanye said What Do You Mean? was his favourite song of 2015), there remains an air of Veruca Salt about him. Plagued by paparazzi and gossip, he seems lacking in restraint and constantly reacting to the incredibly unnatural environment of global superstardom he finds himself in.
His grievances are frequently about being misrepresented, patronised or hassled, but he struggles to express himself without coming across as stroppy or charmless. He berates his rabid fans while professing his love for them, and generally follows outbursts (storming off stages, refusing fans pictures, giving out about audiences screaming at concerts) with garbled apologies attempting to frame himself as misunderstood, but often coming across as passive-aggressive or childish.
Perhaps pained by the world’s lack of empathy for the poor millionaire popstar, and with repentance at the core of his lyrics, Bieber continues his Purpose world tour across Europe.
Bieber reinvented
Last year, Where Are U Now?, produced by bro-step sprite Skrillex and the omnipresent Diplo, didn't so much breathe new life into Bieber's sound as reinvent it. Out with the twee, forgettable yearnings of yore, in with bona-fide bangers that filled radio airtime and nightclub floors. Along with Skrillex, Michael Tucker aka Blood, Benny Blanco and others, Bieber emerged a year ago with the album Purpose, containing the trilogy of What Do You Mean?, Sorry and Love Yourself.
The bouncy freshness and killer melodies gave Bieber exactly what he needed to expand his a career beyond the vast but niche teenage girl fanbase - credibility. The album, a mismatch of #sorrynotsorry sentiments, and broad inspirational brushstrokes, also contained one of the great put-down lines in recent pop history: - "My momma don't like you and she likes everyone" - in Love Yourself (the "Love" could easily be replaced with "F").
So what version does the 3Arena in Dublin get tonight? The Love Yourself Bieber of the F Yourself one?
What made Bieber famous and keeps him going is his voice. It's an amazing instrument that takes a while to turn up. He emerges in a glass case in a sort of prologue as Where Are U Now? blasts through the crowd, a track he mimes - which you could probably forgive given the hectic choreography.
It’s 20 minutes before he acknowledges the crowd, with the first, more energetic part of the show out of the way. Remarkably, for all the lasers, CO2 canons, pyrotechnics, backing dancers and lights, Bieber manages to suck some of the energy out of the performance, half-finishing dance moves, pouting like he’s posing for a passport photo, and lowering the mic to his hip and letting the backing track do the work. It’s strangely sullen and half-hearted, the epic nature of the production filling in the gaps.
Couch and guitar
But a remarkable intimacy is created when a couch and guitar appear and he's left plucking the strings to a strangely obtuse interpretation of Love Yourself. But the different approach on this track (something of an anomaly in a pop show of this magnitude) is overwhelmed by the crowd singing the version they know. There's something weirdly poignant about it. Maybe it is hard to be Bieber, spontaneity and creative freedom stifled by the noise of fans.
“Imagine being on the road for a year, away from fans, away from family,” he says, using it as a segue into a track about keeping each other company. An awesome production trick then comes in the form of an elevated platform complete with a trampoline which he somersaults his way around. It’s the energy boost the show needs, well at least Bieber’s part of the bargain needs, because the production elements, his band and dancers really give their all.
Is Bieber a likeable performer? No. But maybe he doesn’t want to be. It’s hard to deduce whether this is personality or persona. His shtick is that he is misunderstood and not entirely at ease with the pressures and dark side of fame; the constant harassment, the fact that he has said being a star this big often feels like he’s a zoo animal.
But the real issue here is how he comes across on stage. There is little point moaning about being misconstrued when he mostly doesn’t come across as cool, but as cold. Even gestures of fan engagement - throwing a T-shirt into the audience, dropping a bottle of water on top of the crowd - are done with a strange detachment.
After a short interval, with screens plugging the (excellently designed) merch, the show kicks off again, with dancers surrounded by lasers. And when Bieber emerges again he seems to have perked up a bit. The first time he cracks a real smile is after he lashes out a drum solo, followed by a little shuffled dance to the obligatory 'Ole Ole' chant. On record, Children is definitely one of Purpose's cheesier cuts, but tonight, it lifts the roof off, with a genuinely touching moment when four kids handpicked from a local dance school absolutely nail the choreography.
Redemption songs
It's this part of the show where Bieber actually redeems himself, ditching some of the previous sullenness. The concert stars to soar when he switches from moodiness to earnestness. There's evidence of a bit of a head cold, but his vocal performance on Life Is Worth Living is top class, and his first crossover hit Baby - largely derided by critics at the time - takes on a new energy that's surprisingly well-executed.
"Try not to scream," he implores for the track Purpose, sitting down at the edge of the sections closest to the stage. Having walked off stage in Manchester because people were screaming too much, this desire to control how fans express themselves during his shows seems to be a misguided attempt to control his environment. It's an odd one really. Maybe it isn't nice to have people screaming regardless of how you perform, but dictating the type of appreciation people are expressing in your presence shows a lack of gratefulness and grace.
This had the potential to be an absolutely brilliant show, but the star’s disengaged presence for large swathes of the first two-thirds of the night does little to endear him to the causal fan. But that doesn’t matter, right? Because the girls will still scream, the fans will still defend him, and he’ll probably keep writing great songs.
Plenty of performers fake energy and enthusiasm on stage. Maybe Bieber is just actually being real. Forget Love Yourself or F Yourself, what we actually get on the Purpose tour is a young man who suits himself.
The show ends with Sorry, in an act of maddening meta-glee. As "rain" pours down and Justin gets soaked and hugs his dancers on an awards show-worthy set, is it too late now to say sorry? Probably. Still a banging tune though.
