Coachella 2026: Sabrina Carpenter’s spectacle versus Justin Bieber’s basic headline act draws furious reaction

In the 2024 Canadian coming-of-age comedy film My Old Ass, its lead character, 18-year-old Elliott, is tripping on mushrooms when she starts hallucinating that she’s onstage as Justin Bieber, serenading his 2009 song One Less Lonely Girl to her crush.

That song, which Bieber has often performed as part of his shows by inviting an audience member up to be the object of his gaze, was chosen by filmmaker Megan Park and actor Maisy Stella because of the memories it evoked of swooning over Bieber videos during sleepovers.

That seems to be the vibe at Bieber’s anticipated Coachella set this past weekend, his first return to a big stage since 2022.

Divisive and controversial, the performance was either an intimate nostalgia-fuelled experience sure to tickle his long-time fans, or it was a lazy, phoned-in-it snub that wasn’t worth the $US10 million he was reportedly paid.

Worse still, in some quarters, Bieber’s set has been hailed as a prime example of the double standards between male and female performances – and just how much, or how little, you can get away with.

Bieber has famously been beset by physical and mental health issues for the past few years, which led to the cancellation of his 2023 Justice World Tour.

So, there was a lot riding on this Coachella performance, apparently the most any single artist has been paid and which drew an estimated crowd of 100,000 to his Saturday night headliner. Among those assembled were Adele, Timothee Chalamet and Kylie Jenner, Bad Bunny, and Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau.

Even indie rockers The Strokes, which preceded Bieber on the main stage, joked that they knew the mostly female audience that were gradually pushing to the front of the crowd were not there to see them.

Bieber came onstage just after 11.30pm and to call it minimalist would be an understatement. A lot of those words — lowkey, intimate, relaxed, subtle, pared back, stripped down — have been floating around, some used earnestly, some more euphemistically.

The 32-year-old appeared on his own, no back-up dancers or singers, no adornment, no set-ups. Just him in a hoodie, t-shirt, designer rainboots and barrel-legged short pants, and a digital projection.

The spartan aesthetics meant there was nowhere to hide.

He started with songs from his newer albums, Swag and Swag II, but it’s the middle part of the performance that really has everyone talking, for better or worse.

He sat down, pulled out a laptop, logged into YouTube (Premium, of course, no ads) and, if you were being ungenerous, started singing karaoke to clips from his own archive.

If almost anyone else had done this, they should’ve been laughed off the stage. For Bieber, it harks back to his breakthrough as a floppy-haired pre-teen YouTube star uploading videos from his family home in Ontario.

Bieber’s connection to YouTube is intrinsic to his art and it’s how many of his fans discovered him. Like My Old Ass’s Stella, who watched Bieber on a screen at her childhood sleepovers with friends, so did many in the crowd.

During this section of his Coachella set, Bieber was engaging with the crowd, seemingly taking song requests from the fan comments on the YouTube livestream, and just generally evoked an earlier time when he was a sweet-eyed, optimistic kid like his fans, who had fewer things to worry about.

Bieber first gained notice at 12 years old when his mother, Pattie Mallette, uploaded a video of him performing a Ne-Yo cover at a local talent show. It was 2007 and YouTube had only been around for two years at that point, and it was a novel way for her to share her son’s performances with their relatives.

He would play guitar and sing pop covers from the likes of Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder from his couch, and he was great. Soon, music manager Scooter Braun came across one of his tapes — it was Bieber doing Aretha Franklin’s Respect — and within two weeks, Braun had signed the Canadian youngster.

During this period, Bieber would post new songs and playfully engage with his growing fanbase by responding to their messages online.

Now 32 and with more than half his life in the spotlight, not all of it pleasant or easy, getting back to that place, metaphorically, wasn’t just for the crowd, it was also for him. Together, they rolled through songs including the earworm belter Baby, as well as Favourite Girl, That Should Be Me and even that Ne-Yo cover, So Sick.

Maybe that’s why Bieber mostly got away with it, at least among his fandom. Perhaps next time Addison Rae plays Coachella, as she did this past weekend, she can incorporate TikTok, the platform which made her famous with her dance videos.

For those in the pro-Bieber camp, that Coachella set was performance art, an experience that was in direct conversation with his history. That’s why it stirred the warm and fuzzies for some, drawing on not just his childhood but also the infancy of a platform that held so much promise.

Back then, YouTube was mostly a place for creativity and fun, where the likes of Bieber could be discovered, where The Lonely Island’s Lazy Sunday became one of the first viral videos, or where Bo Burnham’s comedic songs found an audience.

Before YouTube became a vile cesspool of misogyny, disinformation and propaganda fuelled by an algorithm that serves only engagement and therefore profit.

There’s an earnestness to Bieber on stage in front of 100,000 people, performing as if it was just him and a home video camera – with a distance of some binary coding between him and millions of people.

Obviously not everyone agreed, and no amount of literal fireworks or guest stars including The Kid Laroi and Tems was going to win them over.

That’s why there’s also been a kick-off about his laid-back/lazy performance. All those who said he phoned it in or snubbed the audience by doing the bare minimum are not wrong, it’s just a matter of perspective.

Especially when compared to the high-energy, elaborate and maximalist set of Sabrina Carpenter, who was the night one headline act.

Carpenter had a Hollywood Hills-inspired theme she dubbed Sabrinawood and featured actors Susan Sarandon (playing an older version of Carpenter), Will Ferrell and Sam Elliott.

It was avowedly theatrical — big set-pieces, loads of costume changes in line with the stage persona of a showgirl who has been through different iterations of fame and ambition, a Barry Manilow cover. She exited the stage in a vintage car.

Rolling Stone said Carpenter had the Coachella crowd wrapped around her little finger while The Guardian gave the performance five stars.

The full-on effort of Carpenter versus Bieber’s low-key approach has drawn furious reaction on social media with punters pointing out that no female performer would be allowed to get away with what Bieber did.

Another case in point: Lady Gaga’s headlining act at Coachella last year, which was widely lauded for its high-wire spectacle and bombastic energy.

Neither of them were paid, reportedly, $US10 million like Bieber. Was Bieber worth the price-tag? Only if you’re a long-devoted fan. Because what price can you put on nostalgia?