C

span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">Courtesy of Mahkota PromotionAs Justin Bieber’s concert approached, I secretly hoped a miracle would happen.

My hope was that someone would miraculously come into the picture to save me from having to travel all the way to Bogor in the hectic Saturday night traffic to see a 17-year-old popstar whose music I knew went a bit like this: “Baby... baby... baby ooo”.

But, alas my hope remained just a hope — wishful thinking — as my editor asked, very nicely, if I could cover the concert. “He’s big,” my editor said. There was nothing I could say to refute that.

Justin Bieber is a phenomenon, a sensation — no doubt about it. The story of the Canadian teenager turned world megastar is the epitome of modern-day Internet era, technology assisted stardom. His life and our world changed when talent manager Scooter Braun found his video on YouTube three years ago.

His sweet sounding voice and dance moves can enchant the minds of millions of pre as well as pubescent girls, and even adult women — bombshell Julia Perez reportedly said that during Bieber’s two-hour concert, she stopped worrying about having to go to court over charges of allegedly assaulting her co-star Dewi Persik.

Every generation has their own pop idols — until they grow out of them. When I was eight years old, I had a crush on Tommy Page and Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. For others it might have been Hanson, Backstreet Boys, NSync, or Britney Spears.

What makes Bieber special is that his era of stardom is set in a time where social networking can create a sense of intimacy, where blogs and tweets on the microblogging site Twitter bring superstars even closer to the people’s lives and hearts.

The taxi ride to Sentul International Convention Center took more than two hours and was six digits. I wondered why the organizers had to choose a place so far away and with such limited access, for a 10,000-seat concert. The answer was a seated-area only auditorium. With children young enough to be in kindergarten, it was a necessary security measure to have everyone sitting for the concert, rather than standing like in festivals.

“At first we wanted to hold it at Kemayoran, however the management requested the venue to be a seated-area only,” concert promoter Raja Okto Saptahari from Mahkota Promotion said a day after the concert in Bali.

The energy that thousands of jumping and screaming young girls exuded was chilling. I began to feel lucky I was witnessing this spectacle. Fifteen minutes before Bieber was set to appear on stage, a countdown timer emerged on the screen. The DJ started to spin some pop tunes. Rihanna’s Only Girl in the World was one of them.

Bieber came on stage and hysteria ensued. The audience screamed, jumped, danced, called out his name, and sang to the first song Love Me.

“How are you Indonesia?” he greeted the audience after the first song. He said he wanted to make the audience smile because that would make him happy. All I could think of was how smooth his sweet talking was, until I realized his words were an introduction to his next song, U Smile.

He had charm and knew the moves to make the audience melt. A moment of silence and a pensive look in the middle of his song My Favorite Girl, made the crowd go wild. Falling down on his knees at the end of the song was another teen scream-inducer. He kept looking down, like a man with a wounded soul, the spot light on him. The crowd continued to go wild.

One could see the moves his mentor Usher had inserted in Bieber’s dance routine. Popping his shoulder, swaying side to side bending his knees, patting his palms on his chest, and the famous Michael Jackson front kick. And like many male popstars aiming to create heightened emotions amongst the crowd, a random cute girl in the audience was brought onto the stage.

The long-haired girl was brought up to the stage during the song, One Less Lonely Girl in the World. She couldn’t hold back her tears, and her face was a mix of disbelief, nervousness, and excitement. Bieber danced and once in a while came up to her and touched her face, while the crowd screamed, wishing they were the one sitting in front.

“It made me imagine him taking me to the stage,” Indri Nurani, 14, said during the concert.

She added that Bieber was a handsome boy, a really good singer and dancer. When she heard Bieber was going to have a show in Indonesia, she immediately told her mother and asked for a ticket.

“She didn’t allow me to go at first. She said it was far and too many people were going. But I convinced her this is a once in a lifetime experience,” she said.

Bieber closed his show with a predictable encore. “Do you want to hear another song?” a writing on the screen said. And the crowd screamed “Yeaaahh!!”. “Really?” the writing went on. More screams. “Really?” in larger font. More screams. “Make some noise then.” The room erupted into a screaming frenzy. “Louder” the text said. The room shook with the sound waves created by thousands of young girls yelling. He closed his show with Baby.

Okto, Raja Okto Saptahari’s moniker, said in Bali that Bieber was like any other kid.

“He wants to have time to relax and have fun on vacation,” he said. After the Sentul concert, Bieber held a smaller acoustic concert at Sheraton hotel, the organizers said. He then flew to Bali for a holiday.

Okto said Bieber was very friendly during the small concert at the Sheraton. He recounted how Bieber still acted like an innocent child. When they were waiting to fly to Bali, for example, Okto said Bieber came up to the former’s father, politician and businessman Oesman Sapta, sat on his lap and requested pizza for the whole crew. “Can you imagine that?” he said.

A number of media were invited to meet Bieber in Bali, including The Jakarta Post. However, a promise for an interview fell through because of a flight delay, Okto said. Bieber arrived around 11 p.m. So we could take pictures of him and see the young megastar from a certain distance, the organizer said.

At nearly midnight the day after the concert, Oesman took Bieber who had just arrived from Jakarta, to a private section at his newly opened place on the edge of Kuta Beach. Oesman held Bieber’s slim arm and took him around followed by his entourage and a number of Bali socialites. After the tour, looking tired but holding his smile, Bieber said “hi” to the people at the private party. He asked what they want him to do. “Anything you want!” Oesman said.

He eventually played a few drum beats accompanied by guitarist Dan Kanter, and sang Sweet Home Alabama. After a picture taking session, Bieber left the premises. Okto said Bieber’s vacation in Bali had been kept a secret to prevent fans from flocking to Bali. One of the media liaison officers said they had used a code name for Bieber while referring to him. Bieber left Bali Tuesday for his next show in Australia.

“They’re very impressed in Indonesia,” Okto said when asked about what Bieber and his entourage thought of their experience here.

“Our hope is that we can bring him back to Indonesia with his mentor,” he said, referring to Usher. Another concert for young girls and adult women to look forward to.