Justin Timberlake is about as known a pop commodity as you’ll find in 2024. He’s spent the vast majority of his life in the limelight, from his childhood “Mickey Mouse Club” days to years topping the charts with boy band NSYNC to finding stratospheric success after going solo.
Such a bright star can outshine a couple of lackluster albums, as Timberlake has managed through 2018’s pop-country puzzler “Man of the Woods” and this year’s “Everything I Thought It Was.” That’s not to go into the myriad of celeb magazine controversies he’s hurdled this year.
No matter. If the deafening screams of the crowd at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday night are any indication, Timberlake isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
And, of course, such a seasoned performer is bound to put on a banger of a show.
He had a little bit of help warming up that crowd. The evening kicked off with an hour-long set from DJ Andrew Hypes, whose name is pretty spot-on.
The crowd cheered and sang along with four decades’ worth of club mainstays, including “Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard, “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan and “In Da Club” by 50 Cent. Thankfully, he did his work from the B-stage at the back of the floor, which meant that there was only a couple minutes’ wait between his departure and the headliner’s set on the main stage.
If you weren’t a fan of “Everything I Thought It Was,” this show might have seemed a bit long — 11 of the 28 songs from the set list came from Timberlake’s latest album, and they’re a bit samey-sounding. Fortunately, that sound works well in live performance, with a lot of grooves that shone in the hands of the horn-heavy backup band, The Tennessee Kids.
In a dark suit, white T-shirt and sneakers, the 43-year-old Timberlake radiated the effortless cool of a stage veteran. A cluster of backup dancers swirled around through the red-lit bop “No Angels,” the first of the new album songs which he followed up with a couple of throwback hits, “LoveStoned” and first-ever solo hit “Like I Love You.”
“Where my day ones at?” he asked to roaring applause during the latter.
That was followed by a slow piano intro to 2006 megahit “My Love,” Timberlake’s falsetto shining in interplay with his backup singers before kicking into high gear at the chorus.
“Y’all came to party tonight, You look beautiful,” he said, pausing at the song’s close to interact with the crowd. Reading one seven-year-old girl’s sign, which read “All I want for Christmas is a selfie with me, you and my mom,” he charmingly obliged.
He moved into the slow start of “Technicolor” on a dark stage under a white spotlight, moving fluidly with one of the dancers, and at the chorus the stage lights burst appropriately into a rainbow array of hues.
Moving into a sultry segment of the set, “Sanctified,” “Infinity Sex” and “FutureSexLoveSound” all featured some dirty dancing and Timerblake’s trademark falsetto.
“Drown,” which was kind of a sonically unremarkable song, showcased a cool aspect of the stage — a large rectangular block piece of the background set covered with screens that moved out, and even eventually up and down. In this case, it showed a giant silhouette of an underwater Timberlake under aqua-blue lights.
It would’ve been nice if he’d made some joke about Pittsburgh and our iconic bodies of water during “Cry Me A River.” Instead, he and the band just absolutely smashed it, throwing the dancing, drums and vocals into overdrive.
After another run of tunes that were a mix of new album tracks and old hits, he used the effervescent “Play” as an opportunity to bring the dancers and band through the crowd to the B-stage. The vintage-sounding “Suit and Tie” kicked off a more chill and intimate vibe as he stood in the midst of the crowd. He even fetched a guitar and strummed along with a few, including “Selfish” — the lead single from his 2024 album — and “What Goes Around … Comes Around,” a 2007 No. 1 hit. He ended the B-stage set with a few lovingly-sung lines of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper.”
What better song to dance his way back to the main stage than “Can’t Stop The Feeling,” a huge success from the film “Trolls,” in which he starred? The sunny song was like cotton candy with brightly colored lights and bubbly screen graphics as he twirled through the crowd.
He followed it with “Rock Your Body” and the kind of fancy footwork for which he’s known, and then a slow, industrial transition heralded … the return of sexy.
“SexyBack,” the first single from his second album, “FutureSexLoveSounds,” cemented Timberlake’s solo success. He seems a little reticent with some of the lyrics these days, but overall his crimson-lit performance was full of swagger, some fun trap rap beat change-ups and killer guitar and horns.
After leaving for a brief break before the encore, he came back to great fanfare and performed “Mirrors,” the second single from his 2013 album “The 20/20 Experience.” “You ready to sing this one with me?” he shouted out to the audience.
During the song, he made his way to a position atop the now-angled rectangular block setpiece so that he floated above the center of the floor, soaking in the cheers from fans who have adored his music for decades.
“This is what I wanted to do. And I dreamed about it, but I never imagined that 25, 30 years later, it would be like this,” he said earlier in the show.
A career like Timberlake’s is, indeed, a fantasy — and it takes a fantastic performer to keep pulling it off. If Saturday night’s Pittsburgh stop of the “Forget Tomorrow Tour” was any indication, he may well still be doing it 25, 30 years from now.
