With a quick fist bump “wassup” to Kenny and hugs for me and Mom, he leads us through the backstage catacombs to the arena where the tour riggers are craning in a huge steel-framed hot air balloon basket.
“Nice.” Kenny and I nod our approval.
This thing is designed to fly me out over the crowd during the song “Up,” starting upstage about thirty feet in the air, then floating out over their heads, gliding on waves of energy and noise, dipping not quite low enough for them to touch, but close enough for me to see all those beautiful faces. I really hope my fans are gonna go crazy when they see it. But then the gondola makes a noise like a Chevy grinding through a guardrail. It lurches to a halt. Jerks to the left. Wobbles to the right.
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