Justin Bieber - Justin Bieber - First Step 2 Forever, My Story

I’m like, “Whoa, dude! That’s not supposed to happen.”

High in the catwalks, the fly riggers debate back and forth on their walkie-talkies in hushed voices. Not cool. But, just when I start to experience some talkback from the big breakfast in my stomach, I feel a reassuring arm around my shoulders. Scooter’s girlfriend, Carin, is standing beside me. Carin is helping out on tour – but really she is here to help me and Scooter navigate this crazy time in our lives. She’s a major part of our support system, and always has my well-being at the front of her mind.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’ll be cool. Safety comes way before special effects. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know,” I tell her. “But I don’t want to have to cut any of the tricks. The show is so awesome. I just want it to go perfect.”

“It will,” says Mom. “It’s going to be amazing.”

“Totally amazing,” Carin agrees. “Look. I think they’ve got it.”

The steel gondola recovers its balance, soaring smoothly again, along with music from the soundboard.

It’s a big, big world. It’s easy to get lost in it...

I love that line in the lyrics. Sometimes I feel like that’s what everyone’s expecting. My world got very big, very fast, and based on a lot of sad examples from the past, a lot of people expect me to get lost in it. I’m always getting asked the same two questions: “How did you get started?” and “How do you stay grounded?”

Standing there in the XL Center, I can see the answers to both: I’m surrounded by super-smart, super-talented, extremely good people who love me and watch out for me every step of the way. They don’t let me lose sight of where I came from or where I’m going. And they don’t let me get away with any crap. The success I’ve achieved comes to me from God, through the people who love and support me, and I include my fans in that. Every single one of you lifts me a little bit higher.

“The success I’ve achieved comes to me from God...”

“My world got very big, very fast, and based on a lot of sad examples from the past, a lot of people expect me to get lost in it”

... nowhere but up from here, my dear...

Baby we can go nowhere but up. Tell me what we got to fear. We can take it to the sky past the moon through the galaxy. As long as you’re with me.

What a trip! Better than a Zamboni ride.

The reality of how really big this show is going to be hadn’t fully sunk in until we got to the XL Center. The tour director, Tom Marzullo, Scooter and I came into it with all these huge ideas, and, once we started rehearsals, I was blown away at how amazing it’s going to be. Huge rigs sailing through the air. A two-story stage with ramps and platforms. Elevator rigs raise giant set pieces sky high and sink back down into the underworld. We’ve got fog machines, follow spots, my dancers and me flying fifteen feet above the floor – it’s a huge super-cool production. I can’t believe I’m here at the center of it all, and I feel a huge responsibility not to screw it up.

“It’s a lot,” Grandpa says, as if he’s reading my mind. “It’s... it’s a lot. But you’ll do okay, Justin. You just do what you do, and it’ll work out fine.”

... we were underground, but we’re on the surface now.

He has tears in his eyes. He does that a lot lately. He gets very emotional when he comes face to face with everything that’s happened in my life. He’s been known to burst into tears during TV interviews, and he’s not at all hung up about that. This guy’s a hockey-loving, elk-hunting, head-butting Canadian dude, tougher than anybody I know. I think that’s why he’s not afraid to show his feelings – how much he loves us, how proud he is of me and Mom and all his kids and grandkids – and that’s why I’m not afraid to show my feelings either. (Well, most of the time. Within reason. You know what I’m saying.) I’m finally taller than my grandpa, but I’ll always look up to him. He’s there for me when I need him and has been since my earliest memories.

The day I was born, March 1, 1994, Celine Dion was solid at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “The Power of Love.” Not a bad song to start your life on. My musical director Dan Kanter, whose guilty pleasure is Celine Dion, must have been really excited that day. It was all over the radio, so I probably heard her belting it out before I got my first look at the blue sky over Stratford, Ontario. My hometown is 2,450 miles northeast of Los Angeles, 530 miles northwest of New York City, 1,312 miles due north of Disney World, and totally on the other side of the world from Tokyo. But that day, people all over the planet were listening to Celine Dion and loving it.

I am a proud Canadian and I hope that comes through in everything I do. I love hockey, maple syrup and Caramilk bars. Canada is an awesome country in general, and Stratford is an excellent place to call home. The people are nice, but not easily impressed. I go back there to visit Grandpa and Grandma and my friends, Ryan and Chaz, as often as I can, and everybody treats me the same as always.

Stratford is a small town of about 30,500 people, named after Stratford-upon-Avon in England, which is the birthplace of William Shakespeare. So it makes sense that there’s always a lot of comedy and drama going on and that our Stratford is the home of a huge Shakespeare festival – the biggest in North America. Every summer, about a million tourists come through to see the plays at the Avon Theatre, check out the local arts and crafts and poke around the town, which gets pretty quiet in the winter.

“Everybody treats me the same as always”

If you’re looking at a map of North America, you’ll see that Ontario is that little triangle of Canada that cuts down into the Great Lakes between New York and Michigan. Stratford is actually pretty close to the United States, halfway between Detroit and Buffalo, but, when I say I’m from Canada, some people think that means I came in from the North Pole on a dog sled or something. Sometimes it does seem like winter lasts forever, but it’s more because the kids are dying for the school year to be over. Summers are hot and muggy, but always a lot of fun. In the fall, the whole place is blazing with colors like you cannot believe. In the spring, it’s incredibly beautiful. The snowmen keel over or get kicked down, the slush piles melt away, and the grass on the baseball diamond sort of struggles to wake up. The air is clean. Everything smells like wet pine trees.

“I’m a proud Canadian and I hope that comes through in everything I do”

“My dad has influenced not only my life but my music”

My mom and dad were in their late teens when I was born. Not that much older than I am now. (And, yeah, that kinda freaks me out, so I don’t dwell on it.) My dad, Jeremy Bieber, was basically a kid, doing his best to handle huge adult responsibilities. Lately, I’ve started to understand how hard that is. He and I have always had a great relationship, and as the story goes on you’ll see how he’s influenced not only my life but my music. I admire my mom so much for how she stepped up to meet all the challenges in her life.