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Justin Beiber took to the stage at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary on October 12, 2012 to play to the adoring crowd.
Photograph by: Colleen De Neve , Calgary Herald
Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen performed Friday night at the Saddle-dome. The show was sold out.
There were no review tickets made available to the Calgary Herald for Justin Bieber's Friday night concert at the Saddledome.
According to promoters, it's nothing personal, no offence intended (none taken), merely an across-the-board refusal to accommodate the requests of newspaper critics to attend the shows. Although, obviously due to the stature of the pop star and the event that his Believe Tour is, other arrangements were made.
Perhaps the thinking being because most of the shows sold out soon after tickets were made available, there was nothing to be garnered from even good word-of-mouth. It could also be because they don't want to ruin any surprises (spoiler alert: he sings and dances and - gasp! - flies). Or, quite possibly, it's because most of those attending the show of their own volition know the newspaper only as "the thing that's in grandpa's lap when he dozes off."
Who knows? Maybe it's all of those things. Maybe they're easy excuses to save a few bucks.
Or more likely it's really an admission. An admission to what they, we, he and everyone else knows to be true: As concerts go, it is completely and utterly unreviewable on any level.
Granted, you could say that about many shows - to the most ardent of fans, Bob Dylan is above any sort of critical assessment and even Brad Paisley is nothing short of perfection personified - but in this case, in the case of the Biebs, it's probably more true than not.
There is literally nothing that could be written about it that would sway a fan or deter a parent from plunking down the considerable dough and going to see the 18-year-old phenom (save, maybe, for a One Direction show that very same night). And those people, more than most, don't want criticism, they want affirmation that the experience was exactly what it was, especially if it's their very first show and it will remain with them the rest of their life.
Who wants to ruin that? Or even taint that in any way? Especially considering that it's, hopefully, the gateway to many more "live" music experiences to come.
No, that's not a cop-out. It's the truth.
So, here's the deal.
If you want to know what your daughter or son thought about it, ask them. Presumably they'll tell you exactly what they thought, what they liked, what they loved, what they OMGed.
They'll tell you without the filter of age, experience, taste or cynicism. And they'll feel good, you'll feel as if you've helped facilitate something special, and that $75 you spent on a hoodie, that $45 for a T-shirt or that $10 on a souvenir poster - they certainly won't get back that handmade one they took to the show that was pried out of their hands by security while the cried their eyes out - will actually have meaning. (Well, other than the four cents an hour someone your child's age was paid to make it).
And if you actually need some kind of other tangible memory from the evening, well, the Herald photographer is pretty excellent at what she does, and has taken some beautiful shots that would be great to cut out and put into the scrapbook.
But what if you weren't able to get tickets for your child, you're feeling bad. Perhaps you would like to know what a random young concertgoer thought.
Hold on, let's ask one. Random young concertgoer, what do you think?
"I love it!" says 10-year-old Clodagh.
Perfect. Anything else? "I love the special effects!"
So. There you go. The target audience has spoken and the target audience for the Justin Bieber show not only loves it, but also loves the special effects.
Still not satisfied? Still think this is a way around actually reviewing the show? And you still, actually, honestly, want to know what someone who's paid to go to concerts and review them for a living thinks?
OK. Fine. You've already put in the time, as did I. As someone who does this for a living, has for 20 years, and has, in the past two weeks seen concerts by everyone from Dylan and Carrie Underwood to the Smashing Pumpkins and Gaslight Anthem, here it is.
Friday night's show by Justin Bieber at the Saddledome was sensory catnip for the teen and tween set.
No more, no less.
It was entirely devoid of imagination, heart, soul and sincerity and had as little to do with live music as Phantom of the Opera has to do with theatre or Transformers has to do with cinema.
It was entirely about holding the attention of children who need a DVD on in the minivan for a 10-minute trip to the mall -? and, like the malls, selling them crap they don't need - and it did a great job of both of those things.
It was all about the overload, as Clodagh alluded to: from the opening which featured 18-year-old cherub Biebs flying into place with angel wings to the lasers, confetti cannons, fireworks, and big-screen projections of everything including a video montage of the singer's year of awesomeness.
As an entertainer, well, the boyman Bieber, is robotic, indifferent, calculated, sometimes creepy and oddly cocky. While the screams may have veiled it, during his first words to the audience he asked how we were doing. We, apparently, being Edmonton. As a singer? Well, he's a showman.
The almost two-hour concert was so synthetic and filled with fake moments that it was difficult to actually discern what was being sung live and what was Memorex, with most of the songs such as All Around the World, One Time and Beauty and the Beat being so stripped of all humanity that they were merely one more element to the flash and bang taking place around it. Only on the odd occasion - songs such as Die In Your Arms, the acoustic Be Alright and Beautiful, his duet with opener Carly Rae Jepsen - did he show off any real, albeit underwhelming, vocal talent, and even then it was difficult not to look at him and wonder if behind the screens and the curtain, there wasn't a tinman pushing the buttons and counting his money as the clock ticked down.
As for Jepsen, she bopped around the stage in glittery hot-pants while high-fiving the kids, singing her pop anthems such as Tonight I'm Getting Over You, This Kiss and, of course, the inescapable Call Me Maybe.
Critically speaking, she was fine.
And critically speaking, the entire evening was easy to become detached from, easy to become cynical to, and easier still to, again, question how and why it should even be reviewed.
Well. Reviewed critically.
mbell@calgaryherald.com
Twitter.com/mrbell_23
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