Music

Justin Bieber should stop touring

In August 1966, The Beatles played their last-ever major live concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. For the Fab Four, it was clearly a huge relief.

As explored in Ron Howard’s recent documentary “Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years,” the band was exhausted with constant scrutiny, fearful of the threat of religious violence after John Lennon’s controversial “bigger than Jesus” remark, and thoroughly fed up with having to hear the sound of screaming teenyboppers drowning them out, night after pointless night. They decided to spend the final four years of their career concentrating on studio recordings.

So if anyone knows how Justin Bieber feels right now, it’s surely Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. And perhaps the time has come for him to follow their example — and get off the touring treadmill.

Bieber is currently in the UK on the latest leg of his “Purpose” world tour, but probably wishes he was anywhere but. Last week, he chided an audience in Birmingham for screaming constantly. “I appreciate all the love, it’s amazing, but can you show it in a different way? Screaming is just so obnoxious,” he said at one point.

Then, over the weekend, he played a show in Manchester. With no letup in the screams, Bieber went a step further by actually walking off the stage. (He later returned to finish the show.)

Bieber’s years of delinquent behavior have led his critics and even some fans to accuse him of being an ungrateful brat.

But this latest phase of Bieber’s growing pains stems from a different place.

“At first, the screaming was exciting. It’s like doing autographs, having your photo taken, doing all that,” McCartney recently told Mojo of those years of Beatlemania. “Then, after a while, it got more and more boring … you were really going through the motions.”

For months now, Bieber has been going through the motions, just like the Beatles in their final touring days.

The bassist and his bandmates reached their breaking point after four years of being on the road. Bieber, who had his first hit in 2009 and has come of age in the modern era of overexposure, has stuck it out for seven years. No wonder he’s sick of it.

So it’s no surprise to see Bieber shutting down. As far back as the shows at Barclays Center in the spring, the 22-year-old seemed listless and even managed to forget to play his No. 1 smash, “Love Yourself.”

Having become so sick of getting harassed in person, he then announced he would no longer be taking pictures with fans, saying it made him feel like a “zoo animal.”

In August, he decided to quit Instagram (no small decision, given how important a tool social media is for pop stars) after fans persisted in posting mean comments about his then-girlfriend Sofia Richie.

For months now, Bieber has been going through the motions, just like the Beatles in their final touring days.

He’s still going, if only because he has to. Canceling a tour carries huge financial penalties, and his “Purpose” world tour employs dozens of people. Bieber knows that if he calls it quits, not only does he get stung, but so do the people who rely on him for a paycheck. The fans who actually want to hear his impressive new artistic direction also get punished.

But once the tour comes to a close in Australia in March 2017, Bieber should consider cutting his losses and retiring from touring for the sake of his own reputation and sanity.

With an estimated net worth of $200 million, Biebs surely doesn’t need the money. During a sustained spell away from the limelight, he could finally remove the noose of teenybopper notoriety from around his neck.

And maybe, just maybe, he’ll come back with the modern-day equivalent of the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album. It’s unlikely — but before 2015, who really thought he could come up with a song as good as “Sorry”?