Bieber Headlines Coachella With a MacBook: 25 Minutes of the 90-Minute Set Were Him Browsing YouTube Videos of Himself From 2008

Justin Bieber headlined the Coachella main stage on Saturday April 11 for the first time, closing out Weekend 1's second night with a 90-minute set that ran from 11:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. It was his first major live performance since the 2022 Justice World Tour, which he cut short after a Ramsay Hunt syndrome diagnosis partially paralyzed his face.

He was reportedly paid north of $10 million for the two weekends — $5 million per weekend.

The YouTube Segment

The most distinctive stretch of the set came when Bieber returned to the main stage after an acoustic B-stage segment. He sat down at a desk with a MacBook and pulled up YouTube.

For the next 25 minutes, Bieber browsed clips of himself from 2007 and 2008 — the videos that made him famous before he had a record deal. He pulled up his cover of Chris Brown's "With You," filmed on a cheap blue couch in bad lighting, posted 18 years ago and now viewed 64 million times. He sang along to "Baby," "Favorite Girl," and "That Should Be Me" in quick succession, all shortened to their YouTube-clip lengths.

He also pulled up once-viral internet videos — "Deez Nuts" and "Double Rainbow" — before falling down what he described as an internet hole. At one point the WiFi buffered during the video for "Sorry" and he said to the crowd: "Wi-Fi, come on, man."

The staging choice was deliberate. Bieber performed alone in a hoodie and jeans with no elaborate set pieces, no choreographed dancers, no pyrotechnics. Just a laptop, a screen, and 80,000 people watching a 32-year-old sing along to videos of himself at 13.

The Full Set

The rest of the set drew heavily from his recent Swag and Swag II albums. He opened with 11 tracks from the A-stage, moved to a four-song acoustic B-stage segment (including "Stay" with The Kid LAROI), and closed with the YouTube nostalgia block followed by guest features.

Guests

Full Setlist