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Justin Bieber Bounces Around A Phish Show And Feels Good About It
You never know who's going to turn up at a Phish show—the eclectic rock band's eclectic Rolodex of famous fans and friends includes everyone from Jay-Z to Kenny Rogers to Bruce Springsteen to Danny Devito to Tom Hanks. Okay, that last one was a joke (or rather, one of the best pranks played by a band famous for them), but what's not a joke is that Justin Bieber attended last night's Phish concert at Long Beach. And Bieber liked it.
GREAT SHOW last night #withdankanter. @dankanter @phish
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) August 16, 2012
Bieber was in attendance with Selena Gomez, and fan site Phish.net has this eyewitness report:
Curiously, [Bieber] and his crew happened to land precisely where this reviewer and his crew were set up, directly to the right of Chris Kuroda’s light rig, where they remained for the majority of the show. During “Suzy” some security guys come barreling in and we're thinking and giving indications of “dude WTF this is our space" but the situation settled quickly. It was a kid out having fun with his girlfriend and some of his buddies, no big deal. They were totally chill and perfectly fine. They hung out and danced and tossed glow sticks and flirted like teenagers. My attention was fixed on the stage, but to the degree I noticed he seemed genuinely into the music. I give the kid props - just some dude at a Phish show having fun.
According to longtime Phish fan and Hollywood Reporter writer Shirley Halperin, "Bieber was brought to the concert by his guitarist and musical director Dan Kanter, who happens to be a massive and very devoted Phish fan. Kanter had apparently been asking Bieber to check out the band's lyric-light brand of psychedelia and rockabilly for almost as long as the two had known each other. Finally, with the band playing a venue some 45 minutes south of Los Angeles, the stars aligned. (It also helped that Bieber was finally 18, notes an insider)."
Bieber, Gomez, and Kanter went backstage during setbreak, where they presumably hung with the band and some of their children, almost all of whom are girls of various ages. Sources say Gomez is holding the son of tour manager Brad Sands, and not a secret Bieber-Gomez lovechild named Esther. Anyway, now Justin Bieber—and inevitably thousands of his fans—are getting into Phish. And to the dismay of entertainment headline writers everywhere, there's not a single letter F in his name that we can replace with a "PH." At least next time we can, ahem, Step Into the Bieber?
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