When I told friends I would be attending Justin Bieber’s first ever concert in Bangkok on Thursday night, they were aghast. I may as well have told them I was attending a wine and cheese evening at the home of a Serbian war criminal. “You know, to write about it,” I tried to explain, but not one of them deemed this excuse good enough. It was as if nothing short of “You know, to arrest him and have him sent for trial at The Hague” would have sufficed.
I thought this reaction was over the top. Bieber was a phenomenon. Perhaps not one that many people over 15 were interested in, but a phenomenon nonetheless. I wanted to see the Bieber machine in action with my own eyes. I wanted to beliebe.
But there was something else. I was worried about Bieber – about his soul. Disturbing stories were appearing in the media. Stories that suggested fame was getting the better of him. They said Bieber had dumped a monkey at Munich Airport, as if it were nothing more than an oversized tube of toothpaste left carelessly inside his hand luggage. They said he had written a note in the guestbook at Anne Frank’s house, expressing hope that the 15-year-old concentration-camp victim “would have been a belieber.”
And then there was the spitting. In LA, they said Bieber had spat in a neighbor’s face. In Ohio, they said he had spat in a DJ’s face. In Toronto, they said he had spat on his own fans. It was as if he was turning into a cross between Michael Jackson and a llama.
I had questions. Was Bieber coping with fame? Or was he – like so many child stars before him – hurtling towards hubris, madness and self-destruction? Oh, and this: Could two 33-year-old men attend a Justin Bieber concert without getting thrown out by security?
—
The Croc and I are standing in the gleaming atrium of the Challenger Hall Muang Thong Thani. We are surrounded by Beliebers. As expected, most of them are young girls. There are also a surprising number of adults. An even more surprising number of them are men. Here, a dad chaperoning a daughter. There, a dutiful boyfriend. There are also a few lone middle-aged men wandering around. I judge them.
I wonder if I should try to get some fan quotes – sound the Beliebers out on the evening’s prospects. But I hesitate. Sometimes I find it hard to guess how old Thai people are. I’m in danger of being a 33-year-old man approaching teenage girls outside a Justin Bieber concert. That is not a thing I want to be. We collect our tickets and head into the concert venue.
The inside of the Challenger Hall is a monstrous black space like an aircraft hanger. Those who have splashed out the best part of USD200 on their ticket – or rather, those whose parents have – are lording it up on the seats at ground level. To the rear, left, and right, are tiered stands for those of humbler means.
As we search for our seats, pints of Singha in our hands, I feel a flush of shame. I sense judging eyes coming from the rows of parents and youngsters in front of us. “I’ve done nothing wrong, I’ve done nothing wrong,” I repeat in my head. And yet I can feel myself acting furtively, suspiciously. I avoid all eye contact. I realize this only makes me look more furtive, more suspicious.
Sitting to our right are two Thai girls who look around 20 years old. They are studiously avoiding looking in our direction. Michael Jackson is booming from speakers around the stage: “Smooth Criminal,” “Black or White” and the like. Later hits, not the classics. I wonder if Bieber sees himself as the new Michael Jackson. I wonder if Michael Jackson is a good model for a youngster.
Suddenly, there is a loud crackle of thunder and a 10-minute countdown appears on the central screen: the minutes, seconds, milliseconds until the appearance of the wunderkind. Cue a noise we would get to know well over the ensuing hour: the screeching, in unison, of 10,000 excited Thai girls. After what seems like 10 minutes, the counter hits zero. The Screech reaches an ear-splitting crescendo.
Slowly, casually, as if what is happening is not in the least bit remarkable, a figure, clad entirely in white, walks down the stairs on the stage and up the catwalk that juts into the crowd. The figure pauses at the end of the promontory.
“Let’s go. I want you to make some noise,” he commands. The crowd makes some noise.
Dramatic synth stabs echo through the hall. The blurred white figure is dancing. The blurred white figure is dancing like Michael Jackson. When the song ends, the blurred white figure does a spin. Bieber is here.
I wonder what he will play next. I am unfamiliar with Bieber’s oeuvre, though I know he has that one song that goes “baby baby baby ooh”. I ask The Croc what the song that goes “baby baby baby ooh” is called. He says it is called “Baby.” “Play ‘Baby’!” I yell. The girls to the right look daggers at me.
“Hey ladies,” Bieber says. The Screech. “You ready to go all the way with me tonight?”
I wonder if it is appropriate for a 19-year-old man to ask a hall full of girls, at least half of whom are under 18, if they are ready to… you know.
“Not yet!” I scream. More daggers from the right.
He plays a couple more songs that are not “Baby.” Later, he speaks: “I want to let you know that whatever you’re going through right now, everything’s going to be alright.” I decide this is a knowing wink to the dads and thirty-something writers in the crowd.
“Yeeeeeaaahhhhhh!” I scream.
Bieber continues. “First of all I want to thank each and every one of you for coming out tonight. You’ve been amazing. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me in my life,” he says.
“No problem!” I scream.
I am taking notes when The Croc nudges me. Bieber has pulled a girl from the crowd and put her on a stool.
“What’s your name?” he asks the lucky one. “Everyone give it up for Lola!” he shouts. Everyone gives it up for Lola.
Then Bieber sings a song to Lola. It is not “Baby.”
The Croc returns with more beer. He informs me that an Indian man is receiving medical attention outside the concert hall.
I am now starting to tire of the spectacle. “How long do you think this will go on for?” I ask The Croc.
The Croc thinks. “An hour?” he says.
At this point, I’m afraid to report, I lose my carefully maintained cool.
“A fucking hour!? Surely he can’t keep dancing like that for a fucking hour?” I say.
“He’s young,” The Croc notes grimly.
And then, almost as if he’d been listening to us, Bieber asks: “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
It is a rhetorical question. Bieber has already decided the order in which he will give us his news.
“The bad news is there’s only one more song left,” he says.
“Not so bad,” I think.
“The good news is I wrote it for each and every one of you in Thailand,” says Biebs. I am flattered.
“This song is to inspire you that your dreams are never too big,” he says. “So long as you just…” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Believe.”
The word “BELIEVE” appears on the screen in huge gold letters. A song starts. It is not “Baby.” Then Bieber leaves the stage.
But we jaded gentlemen have seen too many concerts not to expect an encore. After a minute or two Bieber reappears. He has taken his top off.
Bieber plays another song. It is not “Baby.” Then he says: “I got one more question to ask you, Thailand. Who wants to be my girlfriend?”
The whole place erupts in screams. Screams that seem to say “Meeeeeeeee.” Everyone in this room wants to be Bieber’s girlfriend and Bieber knows it. Then he starts another song. It is not “Baby.”
No, wait. It is “Baby.”
The crowd goes mad.
The lyrics are printing themselves out on the screens and spinning around and shooting this way and that. But there is no need for the subtitles: the crowd knows all the words. “Baby baby baby ooh,” he sings, I sing, we all sing. “Baby baby baby ooh.”
Then he is gone.
—
It was a polished performance. Bieber arrived onstage on time, danced to his hits and didn’t spit on anyone. I don’t doubt he made a few thousand teenage girls’ weeks, or months, or years, that evening. That’s more than I can say I’ve done.
And yet I remained worried about Bieber. If you wanted to turn a child into a monster, you could hardly find a more efficient method than making him dizzyingly famous for the entire span of his teenage years. You could hardly do better than fill an aircraft hanger with girls and have them screech their adoration at him, several times a month.
During a Roman Triumph, the street procession held to salute the victory of a great general on the battlefield, a slave would stand behind the feted warrior on his chariot. He was there to whisper, over and over again, two words in the general’s ear: Memento mori, “Remember: You are mortal.” The Romans knew what too much adulation could do to a man’s ego.
I can’t help but think that if Bieber’s handlers had any concern for his future, any genuine desire to prevent him from falling further into the madness of extreme celebrity, they would have had an intern standing stage-right during the concert. After each song, once the cheers had died down, this modern-day slave would sidle up to young Bieber and whisper, gently in his ear, some kind words: “Remember: You are rubbish.”
