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And Finally Artist News Gigs & Festivals
Non-robot Justin Bieber highlights the UK’s listening divide
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 31 October 2016
Justin Bieber attempted to explain his headline-grabbing actions at recent UK shows on Sunday. Then he remembered that he doesn’t need to explain himself to you, or anyone for that matter, and quickly deleted a tweeted statement.
Bieber rounded off his latest UK tour in Glasgow on Saturday night, after a rough couple of weeks spent trying to stop his British fans from screaming. On Sunday morning, he tweeted a statement attempting to explain his pleas across the tour, which had led to him branding some fans “obnoxious” and walking off stage in anger at another show.
“People tend to want to shut you down”, he began, with the text of a speech apparently given on stage in Glasgow the previous evening. “What I mean by that is, people try to twist things, some people don’t want to listen. But I simply feel like, if I didn’t use this platform to say how I truly feel, and if I didn’t use this platform to be the man that I know I am, and speak from what’s in my heart, then I’m doing myself injustice, and I’m not doing anybody in this audience any justice”.
He’s nothing if not fair, it’s true. But even the world’s greatest human can make mistakes. “There’s going to be times where I say the wrong thing, because I’m human”, he said. “But I don’t pretend to be perfect and I hope to God that, you know, I don’t say the right thing all the time because if that was the case then I’d be a robot, and I’m just, I’m not a robot. There’s times when I get upset, times when I get angry, there’s times when I’m going to be frustrated. But I’m always going to be myself on this stage”.
I think that’s possibly the first official confirmation we’ve had that Justin Bieber is not, in fact, a robot. He’s a human. A great human. A great human with feelings, who doesn’t like it when shitbags in the press – you know, like me – say that he is angry at his fans. Even when he does things that make it really look like he’s angry at his fans.
“When people try to twist things and say – ‘Justin’s angry at his fans. He doesn’t want his fans to scream’ – that’s not at all what I was doing”, he went on. “All I was simply doing was wanting people to listen; to kind of hear me out a little bit. Certain people, certain cities aren’t going to want to hear me out, and you know, sometimes it’s my job to just say ‘Hey, I’m not going to try to force anything'”.
So when he said he didn’t want people to scream, that wasn’t what he was saying. And when he walked off stage, he wasn’t angry. It’s just that some whole cities are filled with idiots who aren’t interested in actually listening. Well, that’s my media shitbag interpretation of all this, which is possibly why Biebs immediately deleted his words.
Having silenced the UK, Bieber now heads off around the rest of Europe, starting in Dublin tomorrow. He’ll then have a final crack at making British audiences listen with two nights at the O2 Arena in London at the end of the month.
