REVIEW: Justin Bieber at Manchester Arena

Justin Bieber brought his much anticipated ‘Purpose’ World Tour to Manchester on Friday night, for his second show  in the city.

It is the first time that the singer has performed at Manchester Arena since the UK leg of his ‘Believe’ tour back in 2013, where he faced multiple attacks from UK critics and vowed never to return to the UK again.

Despite his previous bad experience, three years on and Justin Bieber was back to hit Manchester with his new material, an improved attitude and many outfit changes to show off his swanky Purpose tour merchandise.

First to support the Canadian pop star was five-piece vocal harmony group, MiC Lowry from Liverpool; who are the only band to represent the UK on the European leg of the Purpose tour.

The boys, who are all in their early 20’s, took to the stage with just a single spotlight, one guitar and five melodic voices.

They first performed an original song to showcase their intact harmonies called ‘Saving All My Love’ before moving on to their rendition of the well-known hit ‘Work’ by Rihanna ft Drake, which was a very popular choice with the crowd.

The group finished their set promoting their latest original single ‘Oh Lord’.

Electronic music duo, The Knocks, flew over from New York as the second act to support JB.

They showed off their talent’s creating beats and main vocalist James Patterson sang original singles such as ‘Kiss The Sky’ and their 2010 hit ‘Dancing With The DJ’ to pump up the crowd.

As the support acts drew to a close, the crowd began to wait anxiously for their first glimpse of the worldwide phenomenon.

Justin Bieber’s previous appearances on UK stages have been known to be extremely late, which was one factor to cause bad reports back in 2013.

However, this time around Bieber shocked everyone with his exceptional time keeping as the concert actually  started five minutes ahead of schedule!

Justin Bieber doesn’t just walk on – he either pops up out of nowhere, he flies or in this particular instance, he floated up from the ground in a glass box.

He sang the meaningful ‘Mark My Words’ whilst literally marking the words with a pen onto the walls of the box.

Surprisingly 16,000 screams didn’t shatter the box before it brought Bieber back down to the ground to make the crowd go even crazier as he performed the Platinum selling single ‘Where Are Ü Now’, written by Bieber and produced by DJ’s Skrillex and Diplo.

As Bieber made his way down the run way, the fans became uncontrollable, trying to reach out for a touch of the pop-stars hand.

Bieber is known as an artist who always interacts with his fans during his shows as he recognises that he wouldn’t be where he is today without their support.

Although at his first show in Manchester on Thursday, things were said to have become heated as he urged fans to stop screaming at him so that he could perform his slower songs in quiet.

This resulted in the Canadian receiving boos which didn’t go down too well.

However, in Friday’s show, Justin Bieber briefly mentioned the issue and explained that when he’s trying to be intimate with his fans it makes him feel insecure as he can’t hear himself speak. He said: “I’m still a human being and I still want to feel like I’m being respected”.

The audience did respect his wishes and this allowed Bieber to perform two very special acoustic versions of ‘Cold Water’ and ‘Love Yourself’ as he sat on a satin red sofa with just his guitar.

When Bieber performed ‘Company’, his fourth single released from Purpose album, a huge trampoline came down from the ceiling.

Towards the end of the song JB and a few of his dancers made their way up the ramp and began flipping and bouncing around above the crowd which looked very impressive.

One thing that always makes Justin Bieber’s concerts so spectacular is his dancers.

Having used some familiar faces from his two previous tours and also some new additions – the bond between the singer and his performers is outstanding.

Dancing energetically to his fast paced songs such as ‘As Long As You Love Me’ and ‘Been You’ or theatrically moving to his slow paced songs like ‘The Feeling’ and ‘Hold Tight’ – they put everything into each movement and help to make the show so entertaining.

For the performance of ‘Life Is Worth Living’ the whole Arena held up their phone lights and Bieber was mesmerised as he said “I wish you guys could see what I could see.”

A song which really stood out as a crowd favourite was DJ Snake’s most recent single ‘Let Me Love You’ which Bieber features on.

It was uplifting to see the singer happily skipping around the stage performing this song which made it look like it was one of Bieber’s favourites to perform to.

The majority of songs from the set were to promote his latest album ‘Purpose’ but the youngster brought back some of the classic tracks such as ‘Boyfriend’ and ‘Baby’ which didn’t fail to excite the audience and made it clear to see who the true ‘beliebers’ were.