Justin Timberlake’s Forget Tomorrow World Tour lets us into the mind of a man-child

With 2024 marking a whopping three decades under the spotlight for the double-denim poster boy from Tennessee, it’s a career that hasn’t come without its falters. A Mousekeeter at aged twelve, it was just ten years later Justin Timberlake released the riff-oozing “Cry Me A River” and took a tabloid fuelling stab at Britney Spears by portraying her cheating on him to be the reason their relationship ended (with suppositions of their mutual infidelity since coming out in Spears’ memoir The Woman In Me).

Allegedly calling it off with just two words sent via text, “it’s over,” the ordeal is made all the more harrowing by the recent revelation that Timberlake encouraged Spears to have an abortion. One year on, he was ripping Janet Jackson’s top off at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, to an audience of over 140 million. With “What Goes Around… Comes Around,” ironically a motto attached to Timberlake’s very own name, the heat from these scandals fell predominantly on the women inflicted, with the singer often the one fanning the flames.

Currently performing his Forget Tomorrow 'World Tour', as it has now become infamously known, in between attending virtual court hearings for his June drink-driving arrest, it’s difficult to tell whether Timberlake will ever be able to stand in the spotlight without casting a shadow. An ego that has gone unchecked cooking under the heat lamp of the public eye for all that time has left the singer stuck in a nomad land between the capriciousness of his 90’s boy band cheek, and his somewhat folkier, supposedly introspective current persona. Now at forty three years old, he’s still a swaggering and undeniably smooth-moving man-child who loves the adoration, the spectacle, and the glut.

The Forget Tomorrow stage therefore feels like a reconstructed bachelor pad, as Timberlake saunters from left to right rousing screams and yips from the crowd. He assumes the role of puppeteer in his own man cave, toying with the audience like play things and employing classic crowd tricks like inducing a cacophony of cheers across the arena through the point of his finger, and splitting the crowd down the middle for a salsa off. “I just wanna play, play / Won't you come out and play?” he sings himself on one of the eleven tracks he indulges from latest album Everything I Thought It Was.

Much of the tour benefits from the brash and unapologetic confidence of a man that has never been denied in his life. For instance, the staging is captivatingly, and consistently, behemoth. About a third of the way into the show, one cuboid block worthy of Stonehenge levels of notoriety detaches from the set to form its own screen, light-box, and during “Mirrors” – the closing performance of the show – a flying stage. In another feat of tech, Timberlake utilises a mic stand adorned with a torch, whipping it between his legs and zapping it into the crowd like a phallic lighthouse beacon. The visuals are also impressive: the retro futuristic elements that have long been part of Timberlake’s artistic vision from sophomore solo album FutureSex/LoveSounds marry surprisingly well with the deep oranges and reds of his current era’s stormy desert aesthetic.

Roused by the crowd whose cheers act as yes men, Timberlake also carves significant time into the twenty-eight song setlist to interact one-on-one with his fans. Stopping to take a selfie with one woman, celebrating the engagement of two concertgoers with a rendition of “Selfish” (the John Legend-tinged wedding bait from his latest album), and clutching his pearls before challenging a group to prove that “real London girls can get down on the floor.” It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, both him and the crowd are happy to glaze over his checkered history because most of his songs transport them back to their own nostalgic pasts – everyone has fond memories of classics like “SexyBack,” “Rock Your Body,” and “My Love.”

“We will be your designated drivers,” reads a fan-made poster blown up on the big screen behind Timberlake’s head as he slinks through one section of neat choreography; some audience members are also wearing custom T-shirts with mugshots of his DUI stare. It’s a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement, and a joke that Timberlake appears in on, quoted at an earlier show for making light of his arrest asking if anyone was planning on driving home after the concert.

It’d be hard to deny that Timberlake still possesses the verve and vitality of his early Justified days, exhibiting supreme showmanship when rattling through the fan favourites. He knows it too. “I bet that got your ass up,” he laughs as the opening synths of “Cry Me A River” emerge into the arena, and his energy doesn’t dip in the entire two hour performance. However, the disconnect comes when he attempts to redeliver that raw sexuality and mischievousness on his newer outings. “You know I’m an animal / I belong in the wild, wild, wild,” he snarls on “Sanctified,” which is a little arresting from the now two-time father.

Timberlake may have taken Forget Tomorrow too literally, unsure what his next artistic move will be and continuing to rehash the same tried and tested boy band steps in increasingly muddied and scandalous waters. If one thing’s clear, however, it’s that he excels in urging us to remember yesterday, with his extensive catalogue of hits a true joy to watch.

Setlist

No Angels
LoveStoned
Like I Love You
My Love
Technicolour
Sanctified
Infinity Sex
FutureSex/LoveSound
Imagination
Drown
Cry Me A River
Let The Groove Get In
My Favorite Drug
Señorita
Summer Love
F**kin’ Up The Disco
Play
Suit & Tie
Flame
Say Something
Pusher Love Girl
Until The End Of Time
Selfish
What Goes Around… Comes Around
CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!
Rock Your Body
SexyBack
Mirrors