On Saturday, Justin Bieber arrived on the main stage in Indio, California, as one of Coachella’s highest-paid headliners ever, with a reported $10 million payday for the two-weekend gig.
Given his track record of canceling his tours, the crowd was lucky he even showed up.
The festival marked Bieber’s first headline performance since his 2022 Justice World Tour, which was canceled about halfway through its scheduled run. His previous outing, the 2016-2017 Purpose World Tour, was also canceled early with little explanation.
Over the past few years, Bieber has confined his bookings to a few minutes apiece. He’s performed at a handful of award shows — including the 2026 Grammys, where he sang a stripped-down rendition of “Yukon” (literally) in just his socks and underpants — and popped up as a surprise guest in other artists’ festival sets.
When he was announced as a Coachella headliner this year, speculation swirled as to how much effort he’d dedicate to the ever-hyped and expensive event. Would he honor his commitment? Would he only do the bare minimum? Would he make it worthwhile for the loyal fans trekking to the desert, those who’ve been around since “Baby” and the height of Bieber Fever?
The answers to those questions turned out to be yes, yes, and, surprisingly, also yes.
Bieber delivered a performance as low-energy and low-effort as any Coachella headliner could get away with. Wearing a simple, baggy uniform, Bieber loafed around the stage, mostly alone. His set list leaned heavily on tracks from his 2025 sister albums, “Swag” and “Swag 2,” several of which he delivered acoustically. He rarely interacted with the crowd; instead, he often retreated to an open laptop onstage, where feedback and song requests poured in from the livestream. For roughly one-third of his 90-minute performance, Bieber sat onstage and doomscrolled on YouTube — searching for old memes, reenacting his own viral moments (“It’s not clocking to you that I’m standing on business”), and singing karaoke-style versions of his older hits.
The performance ran counter to the pomp and spectacle of Coachella, which is a haven for brand activations and an aspirational photo backdrop as much as a music festival. Bieber’s fellow headliners, Friday’s Sabrina Carpenter and Sunday’s Karol G, rose to the occasion with dazzling costumes, high-energy dance numbers, and ambitious stage designs. With Bieber sandwiched between them, the contrast was striking.
As a result, Bieber’s performance has been criticized as lazy and underwhelming. But it’s not as if he’s incapable of pulling off those pop-star feats. If anything, the YouTube segment was a stark reminder of Bieber’s beginnings in the music industry, when Scooter Braun plucked him from pre-pubescent obscurity after seeing him perform an acoustic cover of “So Sick” by Ne-Yo on YouTube.
When Bieber broadcast that video at Coachella nearly two decades later, duetting with his younger self for a crowd of millions, what could have been pure nostalgia bait felt more like a practice in reflection and self-respect — especially for an artist who’s publicly struggled with superstardom. It was an homage to how far he’s come, and how much he can do with just his voice and a microphone.
