One Time at the O2: Why Seeing Bieber is Scarier than the Front-Line

Before beginning second year of university last year, back when my life wasn’t a stinking potpourri of essay deadlines, damp and cradling my laptop for warmth, a friend and I took a week-long trip to New York, once-in-a-lifetime style. A little problematically, then, we’d both been before: ruled out was the obligatory (and radically overrated) Empire State jaunt, as was anything involving queuing for the Statue of Liberty, Macy’s or discovering for the first time that those giant salted pretzels actually taste like shoddily seasoned rubber. Instead, we had to venture off the tourist-beaten track: by day five, we found ourselves on the subway, headed for the Bronx to watch a Yankees game (we ditched “tube” when we realised it unfailingly ended with us explaining how not every Brit lives in London and that sadly, no, we wouldn’t be able to pass on a “hey” to Kate and/or Wills). That night, clad in a Yankees hoody (a small, but still three sizes too big) and surrounded by Jay-Zs, was the first time it dawned on me: I’m just not very street, am I? Being out of my comfort zone is one thing (see: most seminars this year), but being out of my comfort stratosphere was something entirely different. I vowed, then and there, never again to get myself into a position of feeling more disparate than Kim Kardashian’s stylist at a PETA gala.

And it was going great: for the past six months, I’ve swerved the cinema whenever Sci-Fi’s showing and the sports park I won’t even consider on Rugby-days. But, alas, like all good (and only slightly socially fatal) things, my keeping myself well away from everything Other last night came to a brutally abrupt end. On my way to watch everyone’s favourite man-child star, Justin Bieber, at the O2, I thought I’d be in the best of company: Somebody to Love was our staple Fresher’s track, I’ve seen Never Say Never at least four times, and, failing that, I’d guzzled the best part of a bottle of Champerlane (you’d never know the difference). By the time I left, though, those Grand Theft Auto types that looked ready to rap the crap out of me on the subway seemed like wallflowers; Justin’s fans, “Beliebers”, as they ardently call themselves, took it to a whole new level of intense.

Strength in numbers: Justin's fans are known for their devotedness

Demographically speaking, high ponytails and UGGs made up about 65% of the crowd. A couple of weeks ago when I saw One Direction at the same venue the same could be said, but what was blatant when comparing two shows was just how harder-cored JB’s fans are. 1D had a troop of squealing, jumpy four-footers, banners showing the work of every glittery gel pen known to man, and gaggles of tweens, hands clasped and eyes streaming. Justin, though, had a sea of frankly quite pained-looking girls who’d trample on you to get an inch closer the stage (I showed her), wailing out pop lyrics like deathbed laments and never failing to gasp if their hero so much as blinked. One Direction’s night fostered an atmosphere of jollity, Justin’s of hostility. With only scattered exceptions, these fans followers didn’t even much seem to be enjoying themselves; they were there to focus on every strut, pout and note their hero doled out in his ninety-minute set, to see in the flesh the boy that must, for many of them, be the object of an obsession. Every act boasts about how their fans are the most dedicated, and pop mania’s nothing new, but for all the Britneys, the Mileys, the Cheryls and the Ollys I’ve seen in the past year or two, I’ve never seen a turnout quite so deranged. As worrying, also, were the mums (a solid 25%): whereas at 1D they acted as coat stands and occasionally batted their eyelashes once too many at Harry, at Justin they seemed as involved in the oddball mob mentality as their (mainly) daughters. From my seat alone I counted four on their phones, not videoing Bieber, but capturing every awkward moment of their child’s anguish. Not to poo-poo parents wanting to see their littluns having “fun”, these were mums wholly and happily ready to feed their kids’ fixation. If it were my ten year old, she’d be in therapy quicker than you can say Baby.

Man of the moment: Justin takes to the O2 stage

To give Justin his due, the show itself wasn’t bad for a boy reportedly more likely to have developed a crack addiction than stubble by the end of 2013. He descended onto the stage, aptly enough, as a winged deity in Ray-Bans, and promptly took to a note-perfect rendition of his cheesier-than-Babybel (and no less moreish) hits. Biebs didn’t once mime or miss a step in his quasi-robotic routine, and though he didn’t much need to work the crowd, made sure to interact as much as could be deemed safe with his twenty thousand supporters (and one perturbed blogger). His newer, apparently much “edgier” acoustic style congealed a little with old favourites like U Smile, but Justin’s management obviously know better than to let him tamper huskily with their winning heartthrob formula: traditional at every Bieber concert is the leading of a simpering fan out on the stage, where Justin creepily serenades her with his hit One Less Lonely Girl whilst handing her a bouquet worthy of Mariah Carey. Though cropped, last night saw the ceremony acted out in almost regal style (and Justin’s practically pushing the formerly lonely teenager from his stage only pacified the four year old next to me who looked about ready to annihilate her).

As he was: Justin was known for his boyish charm

For all his detractors, then, (and there are scores of them), it’s only fair to acknowledge Justin as, artistically, pretty good. What’s sits a little less comfortably when you see him fawned over by his horde of Beliebers is his questionable work ethic and newly pukey public persona. Since about a year ago, but markedly since his split from Disney TV princess Selena Gomez (of “gotta keep an eye out for…” fame), Justin’s worn less clothes than Katie Prince circa 2000 and seems to have styled his dignity on her, too. With a couple of motoring offences, a questionable cigarette late last year and a new BFF who goes by the name Lil Twist, Justin’s formerly squeaky-clean image has undergone somewhat of a sullying. At his first night at the O2 this week, moreover, he kept his young fans waiting almost two hours for him to take to the stage (a complication which, since, he’s denied had anything to do with him being a diva). Speaking to staff at the merchandise stand before the gig, when their stock of £5 wristbands and Gucci-priced apparel was dwindling, it was clear that Justin’s antics went down a little less than favourably with the O2’s management team. I won’t repeat what they not-at-all-endearingly called him in case some of his youngest devotees stumble on this article via Google (though, I’m sure, if that be the case my days are numbered anyway).

In his rap-intervention to Justin’s signature track, Ludacris muses: “When I was 13, I had my first love: there was nobody that compared to my baby
and nobody came between us who could ever come above.” How true this now seems for the majority of the Justin’s followers, particularly those for whom “nobody comes above” their increasingly erratic idol. Worst of all, it seems Justin knows only too well what a hold he has over his record-buyers. Give me the Bronx any day of the week.

Heavy Friday Night: The Graham Norton Show's Real Star

If my being a big cheese in the media world ends up more Babybel than Camembert, I think I’ll give peace-making a whirl. I’ve always had a knack for tempering tempers, for diffusing situations that might make others quiver. Robbie and Gary? I’d have had it all mopped up before you could say "Angel". I’m guessing it goes back to when I was five: the day Lily Lewis nabbed Beth Simpson’s Pocahontas pencil case. My Year 1 teacher nearly had a revolt on her hands that would rival the afternoon the water fountain packed-up (bet she still has nightmares), but, luckily, I swept into the fray. Five minutes on, Beth had her cherished Disney case back in her arms. I don’t know why the UN doesn’t bribe all volatile countries with a few extra milk cartons and the promise of double-time with a class skipping-rope.

Awkward family photo? Graham with last week's guests

Now, prodigious as I am at navigating my way through tricky terrain, even I had to applaud the way Graham Norton danced his way through what might have been a coma-inducingly awkward show last Friday night. Joining Graham on the sofa were actors Mark Wahlberg and Michael Fassbender, as well as US funny-woman Sarah Silverman. A stellar-line up and an easy night for Mr. Norton, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Wahlberg was more sozzled than a post-lash Tulisa. Tweeters were quick on the uptake, noting the way Wahlberg sloshed his way through the bulk of the interview, interrupted the spiel of his fellow guests and even (Scout’s honour) started stroking Graham’s chest. What most commentators failed to pick up on, though, was the way Graham dealt with it all with all the aplomb of a seasoned pub-landlord. This guy made Alfie Moon look bumbling, Peggy Mitchell a pussycat.

The first hurdle for Graham, after getting the guests out on stage, was getting Wahlberg to talk about his new flick Broken City, or, more accurately, getting him to stop talking about it. Mark launched into a synopsis the length of a Tolkien trilogy, only pausing to comment on how the plot about an ex-cop is really quite poignant in its portrayal of corrupt modern life. It was like watching a drunk uncle at a funeral, and when a clip showing the film in all its darkness ran, Wahlberg looked set to put a big, fat, melancholy dampener on the whole show. Cue Graham: ‘Oh, it all kicks off!’ he buzzed, before prodding Wahlberg onto the subject of family and drawing Silverman and Fassbender in on the effort. Deftly done, Norton.

A break with etiquette: Graham wasn't in the mood for snuggling

Alas, though, Wahlberg wasn’t to be silenced into sobriety that easily, and swiftly moved on to the next stock character of inebriation: the egoist. When Fassbender (finally) got a chance to showcase his almost inhuman flair for sound effects, Mark butted in with some inane comment about being able to do the same; halfway through a story from Silverman (about bed-wetting, and all), Wahlberg shuffled to Graham’s chair and sat on his knee; and during the show’s culminating Big Red Chair sequence, which sees audience members attempt to win over host and guests with their stories, Mark refused to compromise even an ounce of the attention he’d sought so studiously. I admit, even I’d have cut my losses at this point, but Mr. Norton pressed on. ‘I’m still being host over here,’ he jibed each time Mark cut-in over Sarah; ‘Don’t touch the man there,’ was his nimble reply to having his nipples rubbed; and when songstress Laura Mvula prepared to take to the stage with new single Green Garden, ‘It’s a great song. Don’t join in’ was all he had to say.

What makes Graham great is the way he straddles the roles of host and guest simultaneously; it’s the rarity of that talent that’s cost Come Dine With Me competitors point upon point when they ‘just weren’t present enough.’ Norton clutched his cue cards for forty-five solid minutes, steered Wahlberg off of his lap and back into position, and (somehow) made sure Silverman and Fassbender got their dues without once seeming like a killjoy. A lot of it has to do with the format of the show (Graham begins with a quip in the audience, and literally becomes our envoy on stage), but equally important is this host’s trick of always staying one comedic step ahead of whoever’s sat opposite him. Watching a tanked Hollywood star could very easily have become the main event, had it not been for the assurance that whatever Graham had to say would always be doubly funny.

Of course, the fact that the show whips out all of its guests at once, and keeps them all on stage throughout, didn’t hurt last week, either. Had they come one after the other, Wahlberg would have been harder graft, Silverman might have threatened Graham’s position as droll-in-chief and Fassbender would have been hard-pushed to fill up a fifteen-minute slot. Thanks to production, too, Norton also had a prop or two on-hand each time conversation with the glazed-Wahlberg dried up: an oversized talking-Ted toy (from Wahlberg’s last film) and a Silverman-voiced doll from her current one (Wreck-It Ralph) at one point provided witter repartee than even a stone-cold sober Wahlberg could muster.

In all, we can at least be thankful to the Shiraz for highlighting what a gift Graham Norton is to Friday nights. Plus, if previous interviews with Mark are anything to go by, he’s better when he’s been on the hard stuff, anyway. 

Wilde, Whishaw and Weirdos: A Study of Celebrity

As Oscar Wilde once put it: ‘An optimist sees the doughnut; a pessimist sees the hole.’ Who ever said English degrees were a precious waste of time? Since I stumbled upon this little nugget a week or so ago, life’s taken on a whole new hue. What do I care if I’m harder up than HMV, have more essays than friends and a head flattened by driving rain?  Geek chic Student swag’s in right now, anyway. Do I care that Beyoncé mimed, that Zayn ‘cheated’ or that the typically earthier-than-grass Adele opted for a fruitcake baby name? Well, maybe marginally. The point, though, is how much brighter the day seems (even in the deep, dank Devon) when cynicism and naysaying’s put to bed. If optimists see doughnuts, my world’s one giant Krispy Kreme.

Curiously (not ‘unfortunately’), though, it doesn’t seem as if everyone’s quite ready to don my rose-tinted specs. In an interview with Mr Porter’s Journal magazine released yesterday, up-and-coming actor Ben Whishaw grumbles about the lack of privacy offered to today’s stars. Since appearing as the new, Topman’d version of Q in Skyfall late last year, Whishaw has no doubt seen a step-up in the level of fan hysteria, but his whimpering about celebrity culture (to a magazine, might I add) is by no means new news. In previous interviews, Ben has expressed bemusement about ‘why we turn actors into celebrities’, and he’s generally eschewed the daytime talk show/ red carpet route now a rite of passage for fresh-faced actors. This time around, however, Ben’s got a touch ballsier with his denunciation of the showbiz industry. ‘Someone was talking to me about that poor girl in the Twilight films,’ reads his interview. ‘Kirsten, is it?’ Thank Christ this guy only pretends to be in the Secret Service. ‘Kristen, that's right,’ he continues. ‘I wouldn't like that. Not at all. Living in hotel rooms and being mobbed. A terrible state of existing. Terrible.’

Grinning and bearing: Whishaw has lashed out at the concept of celebrity

Terrible. Terrible? Since opting into the Twilight franchise, lead Kristen Stewart has amassed a reported fortune of $55 million (and that’s going with the more miserly estimates), satisfied troops of Twi-hards with her performance as Bella Swan, and racked up recognition for on-the-side roles, too. She’s seen more of the world in her 22 years than most see in a lifetime, bagged (and somehow clung onto) a heartthrob boyfriend, and rubbed shoulders with the most critically acclaimed actors for generations. True: Stewart’s name has appeared in reams of magazine copy, her personal life adopted as public property. But would Kristen herself, even, describe her situation as ‘terrible’? Her continuing to accept high-profile roles, despite having the finances to live comfortably lavishly like Simon Cowell on a camp day says it all. Poverty is terrible. Kristen Stewart’s life isn’t even substandard.

Of course, it would be hard graft not to empathise at least partially with what Whishaw points to. The debate’s older than Hugh Hefner (and no less likely to ignite each time a pretty new starlet enters the frame): do we have a right to pry incessantly into the lives of famous faces? Does working with esteemed production teams necessitate a loss of privacy? Should anyone going for commercial roles, rightly or wrongly, only do so if they’re willing to go up against the media?

Rough ride? Kristen Stewart's no stranger to press intrusion

Written down, the answer seems an unequivocal, Whishaw-inspired ‘no’; when handed an access-all-areas pass, the industry loses every inhibition. Indeed, even Stewart’s experience, in this area, might just constitute ‘terrible’. When K-Stew’s tryst with married Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, 42, was exposed in the latter half of 2012, she underwent weeks on end of vilifying, both in gossip columns and on social networking sites. Laborious as it might seem to feel bad for a pretty millionairess home wrecker, the tirade of comments becomes a little more condemnable when one remembers that the articles were not only focused on Stewart and Sanders, but their nearest and dearest, too, including Sanders’ wife and young children. And the story is by no means rare. A cursory scroll through my Twitter feed sees Tom Daley being called a name that would make Exeter’s rugby team blush, one girl asking Ed Sheeran to ‘bang’ her, and Britney being told she’s ‘disgusting’, none of which has anything to do with diving, singing or…erm, sorry Brit. The point, to give Whishaw his dues, is a good one: would we dare, or even care to, make these extra-career remarks about anybody else? Would I tell my doctor who he should be dating, my lecturers that I hate their new outfit? (The fact that my lecturers probably haven’t had a new outfit since 1943 is, of course, neither here nor there.)

Where Ben and his reserve falls down, though, is in failing to accept the industry for what it is. It would be great for actors, singers, models (maybe less so for bloggers…) if cameras existed only in the studio, but it would also be great to be be a milkman without the early starts, or a hairdresser without the knits. Putting doughnuts aside, for a moment, if there’s another thing university drills into you it’s the need to keep your mind as open to jobs as ITV are to new shows right now (Splash I’d be willing to overlook, but The Secret Life of Dogs, really?). To take gargantuan paycheques and pout proudly in the glossies means that you should be willing to take the paparazzi and reporters on your days off. Press intrusion might be a function of the new, digital age, but interest in public figures is anything but; right now, for instance, I’m perilously avoiding an essay about communal conceptions of the monarch in Jacobean England (and yearning for Oscar Wilde already).

Of course, there’s also the fact that not everyone who leafs through the tittle-tattle of celebrity is Paul-Hamilton-mental. It’s like I was saying to Kristen as I scaled her bedroom wall last night…

Taylor Swift: I Remember When We Broke Up...Sort Of

Studying for a degree that demands six hours of reading for each hour of contact time, I’m no newcomer to procrastination. Until about ten days ago, in fact, I thought I’d seen every manner of dilly-dallying known to man, from the mildly remissible to the downright gratuitous (one chancer twice claimed the crumbs under the keys of his MacBook had made typing unthinkable). Last week, though, I unearthed a couple of avant-garde ways of not-working that I thought might just make it into time-wasting testaments everywhere. ‘It feels like the perfect night,’ warbles Taylor Swift on her latest album, Red, ‘to dress up like hipsters, and make fun of our exes, oh oh, oh oh’: surely better than fishing bits of bread out from beneath the spacebar, no? Alas, apparently not. Once I’d donned my best hipster garb (not my finest hour), it took me all of about twenty seconds to poke fun of bygone beloveds. Peeling off the tattered loafers and denim waistcoat (£3.75 I’m never getting back), I felt more cheated than R-Patz. What went wrong, I’m guessing, is the difference between what Tay-Tay and I would each thing of as ‘exes’. For me, it’s a pretty exclusive category: female prime-minister exclusive. For Ms. Swift, however, it’s a tad more inclusive.

Subliminal messaging: Taylor makes no secret of her quest for love

Taylor, now 23, strummed her way to UK favour in around 2008, long after trumping Shania Twain as the poster-girl for ‘country’ music in the States. Since, she’s stroked more chiselled chins than a Gillette advert. Kicking off with Joe Jonas, Taylor has enjoyed trysts with all-American teenagers Taylor Lautner and Connor Kennedy, as well as with the more seasoned Jake Gyllenhaal and John Mayer. Most recently, she’s rumoured to have parted ways with One Direction heartthrob Harry Styles (a Harry is for life, Taylor, not just for Christmas). What separates her from other young twenty-something serial daters, though, is that Taylor just doesn’t come across as the tarty type. Aside from the fact that her catalogue of former flames is more wholesome than an Abercrombie and Fitch campaign, there’s her instant affability (she’s the dorky-to-dream-girl type we all remember from school), her barefaced preference for commitment over steamy fumbles (‘He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said…’), and her aversion to the rowdy melodrama of young celebhood (when Kanye West snatched her award away at the 2009 VMAs, she was gracious to the power of Kate Middleton). Indeed, it’s quite problematic to reconcile the weight of Taylor’s little black book tome with the somewhat diffident girl we get in interviews.

Coming on a little strong? Taylor has been known for her intense relationships

Whilst her good-girl image has thus far remained impervious to the string of Adonises (Adoni? See: procrastination), it seems progressively obvious that Taylor will soon have to compromise one or the other. First up, she said herself in an interview last October that she felt the level of pressure on her dating life was ‘abnormal…like a telescope lens’, and no wonder; with specific, often personal lyrics like ‘you made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter’, ‘what you’re looking for has been here the whole time’, and ‘today was a fairytale’, Taylor has never kept her love life off-limits. Second, there’s that giggling, gaggling core of schoolgirl fans, who no doubt want to see their spokeswoman get and keep the guy, and who can only be feeling a bit miffed that she keeps casting aside their pop-boy pinups. Then there’s Taylor’s own trepidation about coming to be known as LA’s answer to Katie Price (which probably wasn’t allayed at all when Selena Gomez recently branded her ‘experienced’), and the apparent effect it’s having on her ability to tie a guy down: rumours were rife that the split with Harry arose from her reluctance to, ahem, induct him into her hall of fame.

Exposure: Taylor sometimes encourages love-life attention

The snag, for Taylor, isn’t that she falls for guys fervently and frequently; her supposedly zealous, hard-and-fast attitude to love might be a little bunny boiler at times, but it’s surely preferable to the casual sexuality flaunted by the majority of her music-scene contemporaries. Plus, falling Swiftly doesn’t always mean falling stupidly (looking at you, Khlomar), and Taylor’s unbarred optimism makes her a much healthier role model than those who cultivate the screwed-up, contentious good-girl-gone-bad look. Where Taylor might be going wrong, instead, is the way she makes her private life more public than a Jubilee. Whilst penning (and even profiting from) tracks about teenage heartache might even be positive exposure for her fans, scrawling out numbers like Dear John mere weeks after ending it with Mayer and detailing specific breakups on chat shows (as Taylor has been known to do on The Ellen DeGeneres Show) might not be the wisest move for a girl keen to move away from documenting her high-profile dalliances. She can court and reject men all she wants, but when she courts media and fan speculation about those men, she’s asking for a messy breakup.

Taylor touched down in London earlier this afternoon, ready, people are either hoping or fearing (dependent on whether they’re a Taylorist or any other ten-year-old girl), for a ‘showdown’ and possible reconcilement with Styles. Whichever way it goes, let’s hope Taylor leaves this one off the next album; What Makes ME Beautiful might be a bit more than we can take.