Parents turn beliebers

Enduring the May heat with adrenaline high in their veins, Justin Bieber fans marched their way to attend his maiden concert in the country. And it wasn’t a small turnout. Along with teenagers, parents also went for the concert. In fact, looking at the number of parents accompanying their kids at the concert, it looked more like a family outing than a pop star show.

Because Justin has such a young audience, typically starting from early teens, many kids were accompanied by their parents. Interestingly, these parents weren’t sitting on the bleachers at the stadium getting bored while the concert was in motion. They enjoyed the music themselves, and made an entire day out of the concert.

Darshana Patel came all the way from Malad to attend the festival with her daughter. “My daughter has been Justin’s fan for such a long time that I can’t even remember,” she recalls. “In fact, even my husband and I got hooked on to his songs because she keeps listening to them all day!” she admits before she breaks into a laugh.

With the mood on the ground charged up throughout the evening and into the night, one could see parents lip-syncing to the music and some even singing along with him.

Shaira Khan, choreographer Ahmed Khan’s wife, was singing and dancing along with her son through the entire concert. “My son wanted to attend the concert and as he is 10-years-old, I thought it was best I tag along,” she says. Recalling the evening she spent with her son, Shaira says that they had to move from their private lounge to the field since she wanted her son to experience the concert. “I know we wouldn’t have had any of the concert feel had we been up in the lounge. So we came here closer to the stage to experience the thrill of the show,” she smiles.

Several celebrities also attended the show with their children. Celebrities such as Sonali Bendre, Sridevi, Boney Kapoor, Shweta Bachchan Nanda, Malaika Arora, Arbaaz Khan, Raveena Tandon and Arjun Rampal accompanied their kids to the concert.

It is interesting how the concert became a family outing of sorts for many families. Alefiya, who is a resident of Mumbai Central, was sitting on the ground with her kids around her chanting “Bieber, Bieber”. “My sons are 10 and 12 years old — I couldn’t risk sending them all the way here alone. And look at the crowd!” While the original reason of her attending the concert was the safety of her children, she seems to have thoroughly enjoyed herself as she even shook a leg to the singer’s tunes. “You have to admit, his music is quite great,” she smiles.  

Darshan Lohar, father of 13-year-old Harshita, was also there to ensure the safety of his daughter. “There was no other way to know that she’d be safe and sound by herself. So, we’re here all the way from Dhule,” he says, before adding that it was fun to see his daughter live her dream moment of watching Justin play live.

Even as parents were having fun with their children, many were seen feeling helpless and exasperated, as they couldn’t get in touch with each other via phones, texts or mobile Internet.

With a crowd of over 30,000 in the stadium swinging to the tunes of the pop artist, many couldn’t reach their loved ones because of poor network connectivity.

Shweta Dubey and her husband were frantically trying to get in touch with their daughter, who was in the stadium. While trying to reach her repeatedly from outside the stadium, the mother said she has been trying to connect to her phone for over thirty minutes but in vain. “My daughter has been inside since 3 pm. But we have no update of what’s going on inside,” says Shweta.

Explaining her plight, the mother of the 16-year-old says, “My husband and I are calling her non-stop from two different spots hoping to get in touch with her and know for sure that she is alright.”

To be on the safe side, the parents had already taken down numbers of their daughter’s friends. However, that didn’t help much either.