Justin Timberlake at Co-op Live, Manchester – the Prince of Pop’s still got it

There was a time, I’m fairly certain, that Justin Timberlake was the coolest man in pop music.

The Tennessee-born star is a triple threat who can sing, dance and act (…alright, last one is up for debate. We all saw In Time).

There might be a few more memes about him than he’d like these days (‘What tour? ‘The world tour’), but stick him back on a big stage and you quickly remember why Justin is often referred to as the Prince of pop.

He’s got more than 30 years of stardom to back him up, during which time he’s never stopped churning out pop bangers and arena tours, plus all those years he spent as part of boyband royalty N SYNC.

In the early days of Justin Timberlake’s solo career, I was a misty-eyed teenager with his poster on my wall. I was even gifted a mug for my 16th birthday that said ‘Born to be Mrs Justin Timberlake’, and still drink a brew out of it now.

So the chance to see my first celebrity crush live on stage for the first time, and at the staggering Co-op Live arena, triggered the sort of giddy frisson I thought I’d left behind about the same time I stopped writing ‘DJ luvz JT’ into my school planner.

We’ve got a cracking view of the full thing from the venue’s new Hangout area, tucked up in the heights of the venue where you’re basically sat at the bar to watch the concert.

Justin Timberlake is, obviously, not quite the same pop star I fell in love with all those years ago.

During the UK leg of his The Forget Tomorrow World Tour, there are definitely moments where he veers wildly close to cringe, like when he insists on cueing the drum solos with a point and a call of ‘DRUMS!’. It’s so aggressively American I feel like we’re all supposed to have recited the Pledge of Allegiance to be allowed in. I keep switching between having the ick and wanting to throw my bra on stage.

But once you embrace all the cheese and corn of Justin Timberlake’s live show, you’re in for a wild ride.

His older hits like Cry Me A River, Senorita, and Summer Love blend seamlessly with material from his most recent album Everything I Thought It Was, with a sprinkling of family-friendly chart-toppers from the likes of Can’t Stop the Feeling! from Trolls.

Throughout the show, Justin spends almost as much time dancing as he does singing, as per the boyband bible of the 1990s, with at least one perfectly-executed dance break in every single song.

He covers some ground too, choosing not to sneak his way over to his smaller b-stage but instead taking his time to dance and sing his way through the audience, taking a heartwarming amount of time to give a front-row performance to those seated in the accessible section.

His audience participation mostly involves being sweet to children and wooing women with birthday songs. His natural charisma does the trick. At one point he asks who’s single in the room and I let out an enthusiastic ‘WOOO’ despite the husband waiting for me at home.

The staging is full of surprises (unless you’re on Tiktok), with an entire chunk of the big screen breaking away and soaring away from the stage, spinning and tilting as it goes.

For the encore of Mirrors, Justin rides the big screen like a comically large, glowing surfboard, then it folds away like a Murphy bed taking him with it. Does he have to abseil back down the other side? Who knows.

There really aren’t many artists in the industry who’ve been doing it this well for this long.

And that is why, even in 2024, I will proudly drink from my born to be Mrs. Justin Timberlake mug.

Featured image: The Manc Group