The signature sound of a Justin Bieber concert isn’t his sweet, clear voice, soaring above the disco keyboards and thumping bass. It’s the ear-splitting shrieks of his fans. Imagine a rusty fleet of turning streetcars, or thousands of mice being simultaneously crushed underfoot. In the 8,000-seat Denver venue, their screams frequently shatter the pain threshold. God help parents with tickets for bigger shows.
A lot of effort and money has been put into the music. Baby, for instance, was written by the same guys who penned Single Ladies for Beyoncé and Rihanna’s Umbrella, both monster hits. But there’s no mistaking what the true product is. During the concert’s scene changes, photo and video montages of Justin’s “early” Stratford years play on massive screens. When the crowd responds with the most deafening howls of the night, Pattie bounces up and down and high-fives the sound engineer.
Bieber grew up in modest circumstances. His parents weren’t that much older than he is now when he was born, and split soon after. (Jeremy, his dad, lives in Manitoba, where he and his new spouse were recently crowned “Winnipeg’s coolest couple” by a local FM station.) The singer says he enjoys being able to order whatever he wants in restaurants, although that’s almost invariably spaghetti bolognese. For his 16th birthday he bought himself his first car, a black Range Rover. “It’s big; if I crash it, I won’t get hurt,” he says.
The many adults who surround him seem to take their duty to help him grow up, avoiding the pitfalls of early fame, seriously. Dan Kanter, a 29-year-old Torontonian who doubles as Bieber’s lead guitarist and musical director, likens it to his past as a camp counsellor. Braun calls his protege “family.” It’s an overused word in the business, but here the sentiment seems sincere. “I see a large part of my job as protecting him and being there for him, like a parent, or an uncle,” he says.
Bieber makes no secret that he’s not keen about some aspects of his new job, particularly the endless promo rounds and photo shoots. Talking in the dressing room, the one subject that seems to really capture his interest is hockey. A shifty winger—“I can dangle,” he brags—he continued to play even after the move to Georgia. “I’m small so I had to be somewhat dirty,” he says. “I slashed ankles and stuff, I won’t lie. I learned how to hip check and get low on the big guys.”
Once his career starting taking off, he had to quit his team. He played once last winter. On the tour bus, he has a copy of hockey video game NHL 2K10. “I have to play it by myself,” he says. “In the States, nobody else knows how.”
