His long grey hair swept back, the stalwart songwriter - originally from Orillia, Ont. With the stadium lights down, Lightfoot opened the halftime show by materializing on a modest stage near the 50-yard line, dressed in black and strumming an acoustic guitar. The 74-year-old Lightfoot certainly did captivate the crowd Sunday. "Gordon Lightfoot - that'll be the time I turn back from the beer gardens and watch." "J-Biebs doesn't scream football, you know? Neither does Carly Rae Jepsen," agreed Calgary's Ryan Prisque, 22. Indeed, recent Grey Cup halftime performers have skewed toward the comparatively heavy likes of Bachman & Turner, Nickelback, Theory of a Deadman and Lenny Kravitz, a drastic contrast to Bieber's fizzy pop confections.
JB BEAUTY AND A BEAT FULL
"It's not a very good choice in a stadium full of football fans." "Not a real big fan of Justin Bieber, sorry," said 52-year-old Johanna Ellis of Kitchener, Ont., as she navigated the Rogers Centre before the game. Surely, the CFL was hoping to court his army of tween followers (numbering more than 30.6 million), who hang on Bieber's every tweet but might otherwise be unlikely to tune into the Grey Cup game between Toronto and Calgary.īut the divide between Bieber's young, predominantly female fanbase and the CFL faithful is as broad as a lineman's shoulders. Most figured that while Bieber is a bona fide draw - an international star and tabloid fixture whose latest record "Believe" became his third straight to reach multi-platinum status in Canada after its June release - most of those fans simply weren't at the game. There were those early-game jeers any time Bieber's face popped up onscreen, and as fans poured into the Rogers Centre, few summoned much enthusiasm for the teen idol. If the feeling of this particular crowd wasn't mutual, there were certainly omens. "Thank you so much Canada," Bieber announced, ignoring the response. But once again, the cheers dissolved into boos. Clad in a black leather tanktop with baggy pants and a gold chain dangling around his neck, he put in a lithe performance, slickly executing his steps surrounded by dancers dressed in black-and-gold letterman jackets branded with his second initial.Īs he wrapped up "Beat" - which typically features a verse from rap's reigning oddball queen Nicki Minaj - a dazzling array of pyro popped into the air and at first the crowd responded enthusiastically. "It's an honour to be here at the Grey Cup in Canada," he said, a smile tugging at his lips despite the reaction. If Bieber was bothered by the boo-birds, it didn't show. And they booed with extra glee as he took the stage and throughout his medley of the finger-snapping, chart-topping hit "Boyfriend" and the disco-inflected club come-on "Beauty and a Beat." They booed when a host spoke his name at the onset of halftime. They booed when his face popped up on the JumboTron. The 18-year-old grew up roughly 150 kilometres down the road in Stratford, Ont., but that didn't help his cause with the rowdy crowd on hand, who took aim at the ubiquitous pop star whenever possible. Justin Bieber faced a hostile homecoming at the 100th Grey Cup on Sunday, with the jeering capacity crowd at the raucous Rogers Centre providing the teen idol with a reception as unyieldingly cold as a long Canadian winter.