Justin Bieber's Crew Refuses to Tour in Japan

Justin Bieber performs onstage at Acer Arena on April 28th, 2011 in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Members of Justin Bieber's tour crew have reportedly refused to show up at two scheduled concert dates in Japan later this month. According to TMZ, Bieber's manager, Scooter Braun, has reprimanded the crew members, who say they are afraid of the cancer risks from the island nation's recent nuclear disaster as well as the likelihood of another earthquake striking during their visit.

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During a series of meetings in which Braun has gone head-to-head with the crew over this issue, crew members have pointed out that other stars, such as Slash and Avril Lavigne, have canceled Japanese tour dates out of concerns for safety. Even still, Bieber is not the only artist sticking with plans to tour Japan in the coming months – Maroon 5 are also going ahead with a Japanese tour this summer.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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