Dear artists,
We are not your stopover, please stop treating us like we are.

UAE residents pay good money, and spend their valuable time coming to see your concerts, so it would be nice if you performed with the same enthusiasm you exude at your other shows.

Justin Bieber

When Justin Bieber was announced as a concert for May 6, I – along with a huge number of people in the UAE – was excited.

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I couldn’t wait to see the passionate young musician who gained fame through hard work and determination.

So I was gutted when after spending hours trekking to the venue, fighting the massive crowds, and enthusiastically buying a Bieber t-shirt, he was barely able to manage a smile on stage.

He mechanically performed dance moves, barely engaged the crowd, and very obviously lip-synced some of his hit songs.

It could have been brilliant – fireworks were let off during climaxes of songs, the dancers and choreography was top-notch and the audience was enthusiastically dancing, singing along and loving Bieber. 

The moments he performed Love Yourself acoustically, and brought young dancers on stage were the highlights – where he seemingly came back to life, but for most of the concert, he just seemed…tired?

Not at all the energetic passionate performer I was expecting.

Perhaps he used up all his energy partying – at Cavalli Club, at Candypants, at Zero Gravity?

The problem is, artists slap a Dubai or Abu Dhabi gig on the backside of their tours – coming from Australia or Asia on their way back home

And by then they’re over the performing, the tour, the travel. They’re just using the UAE as a filler gig.

The same happened with Rihanna for F1, and Pharrell incidentally the year before.

Pharrell could barely finish an entire song during his 50-minute gig, repeatedly leaving the stage during songs just to leave his dancers to perform.

Rihanna apparently did something similar. 

Rihanna at f1 last year. She would take breaks after every song. The flow was terrible to say the least.

— Mahak Mannan (@MahakLFC) May 7, 2017

This compares to some explosive performances

Bon Jovi in Abu Dhabi were superb, Rolling Stones wowed crowds (despite their age), even Pitbull at least got into his songs and shimmied up and down the stage – shouting to the audience. 

If they can do it – why can’t all artists do it? 

I appreciate these people are human, but this is also a business transaction and frankly, I want my money back

Whether these people aren’t interested in performing here, they’re burnt out or whatever the reason – it’s not good enough. 

If you’re not going to perform properly, don’t bother coming.