Justin Bieber’s Believe Tour Prepares For Landing: Are We Ready?
Justin Bieber and the Believe world tour — Part II — are preparing for landing.
Jetting out of Burbank airport, Calif., Wednesday, the 19-year-old star was headed for Las Vegas for a likely last few days of fun before his first show at San Diego’s Valley View Casino Center on June 22.
Possibly eager to put some distance between him and the paparazzi-teeming goldfish bowl of Los Angeles, Bieber was recently cleared from a still continuing alleged hit and run investigation.
On Monday, the teen star accidentally struck a paparazzo with his white Ferrari as he attempted to negotiate a scrum of photogs outside the Laugh Factory comedy club in West Hollywood. Los Angeles police have since determined no crime was committed due to the slightly injured photog’s decision to stand in the road.
Commenting on the incident on Twitter, Bieber reflected: “sometimes u just wanna go to a comedy club and have a laugh. no trouble. just want to laugh.”
Meanwhile, the mechanics of the huge continent-crossing, stadium rocking Believe tour is cranking up for the last stretch of a global trek that has already played 150 shows, and will now bring Bieber to audiences across North America, before hitting Asia, Latin America, New Zealand and Australia.
According to the singer’s official fan site, the stateside run ends on August 10 at Atlanta’s Philips Arena. After a brief break, the “Baby” star will perform at Singapore’s Formula 1 Singtel Grand Prix on September 23.
From there, the Asian tour begins in Bangkok, then Japan, Korea, China, before hitting Latin America. Pre-sale tickets for Japan will be available from Monday, June 24.
The Latin America leg will see Bieber hit San Juan, Puerto Rico on October 19 before performing at various stops including Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Venezuela was left off the list, along with Peru and Uruguay.
Billboard reveals The Frontier Touring Company will be handling the down under portion of the tour, with Bieber’s sizeable Aussie and Kiwi fan contingent eagerly awaiting his late fall arrival.
The pop star is currently scheduled to play nine Australasian shows from November 23 at Vector Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, with the entire tour finishing on December 8 at Perth Arena in Western Australia.
Members at Frontier’s Website are offered earlier availability on pre-sale tickets during a 48-hour window from June 25 – June 27. The general public will be able to buy tickets from July 1 onward.
“#BELIEVEtour presale is starting this week. make sure u r on http://www.bieberfever.com for details for Australia, NZ, Asia, Mexico & S America,” Bieber tweeted on Wednesday, before adding that new music (which includes upcoming new single “Heartbreaker”) and the Believe tour movie are also on their way.
rest of the world tour, movie, and #NEWMUSIC all coming this year! never stop working. #focused
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) June 19, 2013
In Australia and perhaps the whole of this next leg, the shows will be directed by John M. Chu (who helmed Bieber’s concert-biopic Never Say Never, the Step Up franchise, and G.I Joe: Retaliation). Billed as a spectacle with “lights sounds and pyrotechnics,” anticipation in the territories to come is already building.
To date, the Believe tour has generated a mix of (mostly) rapturously received shows and bizarre headlines.These included a few late concert starts, the singer’s clash with a Brit pap, the seizure of his former pet monkey, a tour bus drug raid by Swedish police, an international firestorm after his guestbook note at Amsterdam’s Anne Frank museum, before wrapping with two reportedly terrific South Africa shows footnoted by a bodacious Ocean’s 11 heist by criminals in Johannesburg.
It’s been a helluva ride.
For Bieber, all of the above and more played out against a backdrop of waxing international media coverage, a last dance dalliance with Selena Gomez, looming legal struggles and ongoing police investigations. Equal parts entertaining, concerning, hilarious, and worrying, throughout it the pop star has displayed contradictory qualities: stamina, rage, generosity, recklessness, frustration and gratitude, on a rites-of-passage tour that — at the very least — has always been interesting.
From a PR perspective the tour’s been a series of Monty Python-esque sketches, but to millions of devoted fans it’s been their version of Michael Jackson’s peak period concert extravaganzas.
Justin Bieber and the Believe world tour are making their final approach, whether we’re ready or not.
For the full tour schedule visit here.
