Justin Bieber didn’t really arrive at Coachella so much as he kind of… eased into it.
After his February Grammys stage moment—shirtless under glittery silk boxers in a performance of “Yukon”—the Canadian pop star turned around and stepped into Indio, California for his first Coachella headlining set of the year wearing a slouchy, zippered red hoodie and black “Speed Racer” shades, both from his Skylrk label. He padded around a sparse, abstractly futuristic, Ye-like set in lug-soled Loewe cutout boots, like he was wandering through his own version of “wait, let me get comfy.”
The set itself leaned mostly on songs off his seventh studio album Swag and its little brother, Swag II. Then, somewhere midway, he ditched the sweatshirt shroud and—this part stood out—started scrolling on his laptop. With the projection of his manual typing into YouTube’s search bar flashing on the massive screen behind him, Bieber pulled up old music videos and clips from his earliest live performances. He even fleetingly sang along, then bounced through some past on-stage fails (there were definitely “whoopsie, ouch!” vibes) and unrelated meme clips like “deez nuts!”
At one point, Bieber stepped away from the MacBook and said, “Alright I’m getting pulled into the deep, dark web,” before adding, “We gotta keep this show going, man.” From there he jumped into the final section with “Yukon,” then segued into duets featuring Dijon, Tems, Wizkid, and Mk.gee. Earlier at the Grammys, his in-the-boxers look had already read like a calculated vulnerability—an oddly confident groove, vulnerability plus an on-brand shrug. (“I don’t think he decided what the outfit would be until he walked on stage,” Grammys executive producer Ben Winston told Rolling Stone.) Either way, the boldness of it, paired with vocals that still land, seemed to hit industry peers and home viewers about the same.
On the Coachella stage, Bieber went even further into a looser mode—dressed and acting more like he’s been during many of the pseudo-vérité Twitch streams he’s hosted in recent months. It was cozy, maybe overly so. Online, some fans complained that the stage presence felt too relaxed, and that the production didn’t have the Super Bowl halftime show-level punch people now (understandably, given Coachella ticket prices) expect from headliners—especially the kind of full-tilt razzle dazzle Sabrina Carpenter brought to the main stage on Friday. Others pushed back the other way, framing Bieberchella’s low-fi hangout format as a metacommentary on a career that started on YouTube in 2008, when his former manager Scooter Braun discovered a video of a young Bieber singing on the platform.
There’s also the business side, and it’s impossible to ignore this year. Coachella, now in its 25th year, has basically become an Olympics-level platform for influencer marketing and brand activations. Bieber and Skylrk leaned into that hard, building a 10,000-square-foot “Skylrk Oasis” on the grounds—temporarily relocated palm trees out front, misting stations cooling things off, and screens running “mesmeric” visuals while a pop-up shop sold Coachella-exclusive merch: hoodies, skull-cap beanies, and tees with slogans including “Biebervelli” and “It’s Not Clocking.” That last phrase traces back to Bieber’s viral paparazzi confrontation last year; it later showed up in a sample on Swag and somehow even got conjured during his mid-set YouTube-karaoke moment.
The drop also brought new colors of the brand’s “Sizzler” silicone iPhone case, with a joint-shaped “integrated multi-use holder,” a direct riff on Hailey Bieber’s viral lip-gloss phone case. In December, Hailey told GQ that she personally approved Justin’s use of her copyrighted design, saying she thought the joint-holder case was “really sick and really fucking cool.” Hailey and Justin really did ride the Bieberchella economic wave this week too—she came up with what might be the funniest item of the bunch: a white baby tee that reads “Future Mrs. Bieber,” and she posted it on her Instagram story with the caption, “Made this for the ones who have a good sense of humor.” In the week leading up to the festival, they also released a joint capsule collection for her beauty label Rhode with banana-flavored lip gloss and hydrocolloid zit stickers shaped like daisies and mushrooms, plus a separate Instagrammable Rhode pop-up shop that’s been a recurring part of Coachella.
Coachella weekend one ended with Bieber merch selling fast enough that Skylrk says the site-specific goods are now available for preorder on the brand’s website, and that its on-site sales as of Sunday morning are on track to surpass all-time Coachella records for merch sales. Commemorative hoodies already promised what fans most want to hear next: Bieber is expected back next Saturday for Coachella weekend two—though honestly, the hoodie-and-laptop vibe might be the thing that sticks longest, even if it’s not exactly the kind of noise you’d hear from the main stage the whole time.