BIEBER FEVER IN MARKET
Singer spotted before show
Apparently being at the epicentre of Bieber Fever works up a mighty thirst. Justin Bieber was spotted cruising the ByWard Market Thursday afternoon, with fans clamouring for pictures of the pop star out for a stroll with a Tim Hortons Iced Capp in hand.
But for the hardworking folks at The Laff, a brush with the Biebs didn’t bring the payday they’d hoped for. Amid the social media frenzy that kicked off when Bieber touched down in the capital — on the eve of his Purpose world tour, which lands at the Canadian Tire Centre on Friday — staff at famed ByWard Market watering-hole Château Lafayette sent out a cheeky tweet admonishing Bieber for forgetting to tip his server after apparently stopping in for a midafternoon refreshment.
Operations manager Deek Labelle said Bieber walked in and took a seat around 3:30 p.m. and had his handler order him a Bud Light.
“(His handler) didn’t even tip his server,” Labelle said. “I thought everybody knew that’s common practice. I was kinda surprised.”
Labelle said bar staff sent a tweet making light of the snub after Bieber finished half the beer and left. “Twitter is blowing up,” she said. Bieber is one of the top-selling pop stars of his era, and in 2014 he was the highest-paid performer under age 30, making an estimated $80 million, according to Forbes.
Bieber sightings, meanwhile, triggered a social media explosion. Fans snapped photos of Bieber walking out of a downtown Tim Hortons, sipping the chain’s signature Iced Capp and wearing the baggy onearmed denim overalls that earned him scorn when he wore a similar getup to a meeting with former prime minister Stephen Harper.
Fans gushed on social media about their brush with pop royalty. One named Katie tweeted — in all caps — that “Justin Bieber just walked past my restaurant and I am dying and now he’s gone forever OMG,” followed by a string of appropriately heartbroken emojis.
A fan named Adri tweeted — in allcaps, and without any semblance of punctuation — “Justin Bieber is in the market right now and I am in the market right now I don’t see him but I think I’m gonna faint.”
Bieber himself got in on paparazzi action, snapping a photo of a skateboarder outside Clarendon Lanes apartments on York Street and posting the photo to Instagram with the caption, “This kid is rad.”
The post racked up nearly 700,000 “likes” in the first two hours — Bieber is one of the mostfollowed social media stars, with nearly 68 million followers on Instagram and 80 million on Twitter. Several keen-eyed fans identified the skater in the picture as Bieber’s videographer Rory Kramer, who describes himself as a “professional life liver” on his Instagram account.
Another of Bieber’s close confidants has a direct connection to the city — his musical director and former guitarist Dan Kanter hails from Ottawa. Kanter, according to his own social media postings, was busy taking in Pearl Jam concerts Tuesday and Thursday in Toronto.
Bieber’s casual stroll around downtown didn’t provide nearly the same gossip fodder as his visit to Boston 24 hours earlier.
Following his concert, People magazine reported, he partied at Boston’s Storyville nightclub, dancing on the bar and downing tequila shots until the wee hours, and at one point kicked out VIP patrons so he could take over the section.
A day earlier, Bieber on Instagram about fans trying to snap selfies with him, saying, “I’m done taking pictures ... I feel like a zoo animal, and I wanna be able to keep my sanity.”