The country was gripped by Justin Bieber’s fever for the past few weeks before his arrival in Mumbai. However, many are shocked, disappointed and angry at what really happened at JB’s most awaited India debut. The teen sensation (he isn’t a teen though) received backlash for his unprepared appearance which he tried to camouflage with a cliched ‘Namaste’ and ‘I’ll be back’. Of all the worries that have been topping headlines in the past few days, the funniest if from All India Bakchod. AIB’s 30-something Ashish Shakya attended the show and his account is the wittiest we’ve read all day. If you love AIB, you’ll definitely love this!
An Uncle Reports From The Justin Bieber Show
“The Justin Bieber gig is over and obviously there’s no one better to recap it than a guy who knows maybe three songs and who, had he been careless in college, would’ve attended the show with his kid.
So, first things first: a lot of people have asked me, why O why did you, Ashish Shakya, connoisseur of the fine arts and love-maker extraordinaire, subject yourself to this? The answer to this is the line that defines my social life: I’ll go if it’s near my house.
I grew up in Nerul, Navi Mumbai, where the most fun thing to do was to go to Colaba. The most exciting celebrity presence was when – true story – someone spotted one of the guys from A Band Of Boys in my colony. And even he didn’t live there – he was just visiting his parents, probably to explain to them the complex nuances of his band name.
So of course, one of the world’s biggest pop stars performing on the same campus where Abey “Who?” Kuruvilla once used to bowl, was a momentous occasion. But more importantly, it was free.
This complimentary access meant that my friends and I – a group of 30-somethings, along with two actual Beliebers in their early 20s – could saunter in at 6.30 p.m., unlike the poor kids who’d started lining up for free heat strokes at 2 p.m. This helped because the humidity situation was what you’d expect in May, i.e. you could drink straight from the air.
I went in with an open mind, as is only proper because I have, on a couple of occasions, drunk-karaoke’d to Bieber’s ‘Baby’. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m a fan of Bieber – it just means that I’m a fan of drinking. Pour enough in me and I’ll sing out the obituary section of a newspaper.
I didn’t expect to be blown away but I figured, hey, this was an international act worth hundreds of millions of dollars so surely they’d put up some sort of performance spectacle. What, I wondered, are these foreigners doing at gigs that we aren’t doing here?
Well, for starters, lip-syncing. Now a common reaction to this has been, “Yah but u shud have known about lip-sync earlier wat r u dumb I AM SO KOOL I ONLY LISTEN 2 ROCK.” First of all, keep your smugness in your pants. I left my shame lying somewhere back in my 20s, along with my metabolism, so your musical snobbery is useless here.
And secondly, I’m glad that I didn’t know in advance, because it would’ve been a spoiler for my favourite moment of the show. It came when Bieber was wiping his face with a towel such that the towel covered his entire face, and the vocals just played on unchanged.
That was when I laughed out loud and couldn’t stop because that, ladies and gentlemen, is an astounding lack of fucks. You’ll find more fucks per capita in a monastery. I have seen the BMC give more fucks about Mumbai roads, and they all look like Captain Planet dug ‘em up trying to locate Gaia’s G-spot.
This was like watching Bobby Deol “hack” Akshay Kumar’s password in Ajnabee – you knew everyone involved was tired and just wanted to leave, so they said, “Fuck it, ‘Everything Is Planned’ likh do, ghar jaake Taarak Mehta dekhna hai.”
Imagine that Ajnabee level of nonchalance, but LIVE, on a multimillion-dollar scale. Imagine the smiles of a thousand Beliebers wilting in unison, their hearts shattering as the myth of their Piper dissolved before them, while thousands of others still stayed strong and did not let their fandom waver, even in the face of irrefutable evidence. This is also how the nationalism debate works.
Lip-syncing aside, Bieber had the electrifying stage presence of khichdi. It’s sad that the story about Sonakshi Sinha’s performance turned out to be a rumour, because she would’ve been way better than a guy who looked like his mom was forcing him to say hello to Mamaji on the phone. It got me nostalgic about the time I watched Euphoria on the same campus ages ago, especially because Palash Sen could run circles around this guy despite being 87 years old.
All things considered, I’m so glad that I went because it’s not often that you get to witness a magnum opus Failblog. The quality of Bieber’s pop music is a dumb debate that I hate getting into, because it’s like our parents judging us for Backstreet Boys and Aqua back in the day. And I don’t know about you, but if Aqua ever comes here, I’ll be up front, singing Candyman at the top of my lungs. I just hope it’s near my house.
The 23-year-old Canadian star was so tired and unimpressed that he left India middle of the night and cancelled all his plans of visiting Jaipur, Agra and Delhi. Looks like someone is reading the slammed tweets by the ‘Beleibers’.