Justin Timberlake – Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

“This is going to ruin the tour.” What tour? “The world tour!” So said Justin Timberlake to the officer who pulled him over for drunk-driving earlier this summer, a retort that instantly became an internet meme. It was the latest in a litany of sins that has left the Memphis-born former NSYNC singer in dire need of a public image course-correction – by far the gravest of which was his evisceration by Britney Spears in her 2023 memoir, where she accused him of cheating on her and coercing her to have an abortion.

You wouldn’t have guessed any of that had happened from his show in Birmingham on Wednesday night. The packed-out venue and classy, high-budget production suggested the presence of an artist held in much higher regard – an artist, perhaps, responsible for countless early-2000s borderline-appropriative R&B-pop hits, which explained the hen do atmosphere that prevailed in the Utilita Arena. Indeed, Timberlake has reached the stage of his career where the mums in the crowd dance harder than their teenage daughters: the young officer who arrested and charged him for driving under the influence had no idea who he was.

Sometimes the hits serve to remind you not just of past glories but of diminishing returns. Wednesday’s setlist skewed heavily towards Timberlake’s latest album Everything I Thought It Was, a record which coasted current trends so cautiously it plunged straight off the charts, like a driver stopped for driving too slowly. None of the new songs, even Calvin Harris-aided F–cking Up The Disco, stood out like Timberlake’s older hits: LoveStoned, Like I Love You, and Cry Me a River, its bizarre and brilliant union of Gregorian chant and beatboxing providing the first genuinely thrilling, arena-worthy moment of the night.

For flabby new material aside, the show was a reminder of the popstar’s prowess as a performer. Timberlake is a born entertainer with the singing talent to match, wielding all the usual crowd interaction tricks and employing the same pace and mode of attack as the opening hype DJ. Age and bad behaviour haven’t affected his dancing, either: in shades, suit, and white trainers, he cut as slickly choreographed a figure as ever.

He got away with moments that ought to feel like the work of a cheesy wedding DJ – “this next one’s for the couples” – all the while lifted by his excellent backing band, the Tennessee Kids, who particularly shone when they accompanied him to a smaller stage at the back of the arena.

Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears in 2002 – TOM MIHALEK
But when Timberlake strapped on an acoustic guitar for 2018 single Say Something, you couldn’t help but think of Britney Spears, writing about how she writhed in post-abortion agony on a bathroom floor while he tried to comfort her with a bit of self-indulgent strumming. (Timberlake never commented on these allegations.) A moment brutally dispelled by a final shower of hits: 2016’s painfully ubiquitous Can’t Stop the Feeling!, Rock Your Body, SexyBack. These songs, and the show itself, were frustratingly good: as in 2004 when he exposed Janet Jackson’s breast at the Super Bowl, Timberlake continues to emerge from controversy unscathed.

A female popstar wouldn’t bounce back from behaviour of his kind quite so smoothly. A female popstar would have to genuinely worry about ruining the world tour.