THE Justin Bieber juggernaut has finally arrived in Australia.

As the full deck of commercial news crews camped out at the entertainment centre attest, there's no doubting Bieber's star power.

Arriving into the country on the day of the first show, the Canadian had Brisbane teens, primarily girls, scoping out city hotels days earlier hoping for a glimpse of their idol.

The venue itself, hours before show time, saw teens scurrying towards rental cars and crowding the gates that led back stage in hope of a sighting. By mid-afternoon St John's Ambulance was recording its first victims of hysteria and fatigue.

To say Bieber is big with the kids is an understatement.

One British broadsheet has suggested Bieber has more social networking clout that President Obama and the Dalai Lama.

With a venue packed to capacity, this reviewer, in 20 years, has never seen or heard anything like it.

Local duo Dash & Will began proceedings and impressed with their electro pop hooks.

DJ Tay James amped the crowd up further spinning contemporary Top 40 and leading the audience through the big screen digital countdown.

In their latter reflections the Beatles would recall the teenage screams of their touring heyday as so deafening they could only be compared to legions of baying seagulls. Take that concept and magnify it.

The 17-year-old Bieber arrived amid a wash of lasers and launched into Love Me. The audience needed no encouragement.

The stage design relied on impressive visuals and scaffolding for the singer, and his quartet of dancers, to strut their stuff.

Alongside an onstage DJ, Bieber's troupe includes a live band and four backing singers.

The bulk of the audience was on its feet all night. The spectre of Michael Jackson hung over proceedings as Bieber's dancers staged a mock fight. The influence was further evident on the silky R&B delivery of Bigger.

The auditorium was a sea of glow sticks during the first sing-a-long of the night, U Smile. Mid-show the video screens took over showing footage of Bieber's life story from toddler to superstar, with a cameo from Usher.

Despite the shtick, Bieber relates to the throng as if he's talking directly to that one girl in the audience: forging a connection built on confection.

There's nothing original in Bieber's dance routines and his between song dialogue is riddled with cliches. Nor is he a freakishly good singer. But there's an X-factor and something altogether indefinable that has struck a chord with legions of fans.

Viewing it on full display before a paying audience sees Bieber inhabit a realm where the concert becomes a bigger event: a cultural marker for those teenagers who, for a night at least, appeared completely in the moment.

Further highlights included One Less Lonely Girl, with a girl pulled from the audience, his credo of Never Say Never and a take on Jackson's Wanna Be Starting Something, complete with moonwalk, which morphed into a thumping version of Aerosmith's Walk This Way. A grand piano was wheeled out for Pray and Bieber closed with the night with Baby, a song with a quaint 1950s styling fused with sugar sweet R&B.

Great pop has a habit of providing era-defining moments for pre-teens and teenagers. This will be one of them.

Not since the heyday of the Beatles or Farrah Fawcett in the 1970s has one person's hairstyle had such a impact.