Photos: Justin Bieber in Concert at Bankers Life Fieldhouse

Justin Bieber can be a character, capering around stages globally to perform his cache of pop-music hits and also catalyzing a maelstrom of controversy by disrespecting (and then apologizing to) a former U.S. president. The 19-year-old Canadian crooner, who Forbes has it made $58 million dollars in 2012, brought his latest tour to Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on Wednesday night. (He also had time to shoot some Hoosierland-based hoops before the concert.)

The teen star’s appearance elicited just the response you might imagine: stop-start traffic on Indy’s downtown grid of streets, hordes of mother-daughter pairs dotting the sidewalks with anticipation, and oodles of tween screams inside the arena that pierced the air (and neighboring eardrums) without end.

The “Believe” tour came and went, and yet for a time, for one night only, Bieber gave his throngs of “Beliebers” exactly what they wanted: himself. A lot of himself, ducking and swooping around the stage, with and without an armada of backup dancers, and alternately changing and removing his costumes.

Concerts like this make for a cultural experiment for some, and a near-religious experience for others. It’s all in the eye of the beholder—yea, the Belieber.